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THE  LIFE 

OP 

VOLTAIRE 


ft 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2017  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign  Alternates 


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THE  LIFE 

OF 

VOLTAIRE 


BY 

S.  G.  TALLENTYRE 


AUTHOR  OF  ‘ THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  SALONS  ’ ETC. 


c Je  n'ai  point  de  sceptre,  mcds  j'cd  une  plume — VOLTAIRE 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


THIRD  EDITION 


NEW  YORK:  G.  P.  PUTNAM’S  SONS 
LONDON  : SMITH,  ELDER,  & CO. 
1907 


844-W&- 
BH  /4 

! 9 07 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 


__  1. 

THE  BOYHOOD  

1 

11. 

EPIGRAMS  AND  THE  BASTILLE 

15 

s 

hi. 

‘CEDIPE,’  AND  THE  JOURNEY  TO  HOLLAND  . 

28 

i«W- 

C3 

O 

IV. 

THE  ‘HENRIADE,’  AND  A VISIT  TO  COURT 

85 

CO 

_ V. 

ENGLAND,  AND  THE  ‘ENGLISH  LETTERS’ 

. . 

46 

CO 

—VI. 

PLAYS,  A BURLESQUE,  AND  THE  APPEARANCE  OF 

‘ LETTERS ’ 

THE 

57 

ir> 

<T> 

VII. 

MADAME  DU  CHATELET  

70 

— VIII. 

A YEAR  OF  STORMS 

81 

CM 

IX. 

WORK  AT  CIREY 

90 

X. 

PLEASURE  AT  CIREY 

99 

XI. 

THE  AFFAIR  DESFONTAINES 

. . 

110 

— XII. 

FLYING  VISITS  TO  FREDERICK 

119 

i 

XIII. 

TWO  PLAYS  AND  A FAILURE 

128 

1 

; 

XIV. 

VOLTAIRE  AS  DIPLOMATIST  AND  COURTIER 

t 

189 

w 

XV. 

THE  POPE,  THE  POMPADOUR,  AND  ‘ THE  TEMPLE 

OF 

\ *J 

£ 

GLORY ’ . 

148 

XVI. 

THE  ACADEMY,  AND  A VISIT 

. 

156 

V5  '■■ 

XVII. 

COURT  DISFAVOUR,  AND  HIDING  AT  SCEAUX 

164 

It 

zr 

XVIII. 

THE  MARQUIS  DE  SAINT-LAMBERT  .... 

. 

172 

XIX. 

THE  DEATH  OF  MADAME  DU  CHATELET 

. • 

182 

XX. 

PARIS,  ‘ ORESTE  ’ AND  ‘ ROME  SAUVEE  ’ . . . 

. 

198 

XXI. 

GLAMOUR 

207 

VI 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


CHAPTER 

XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIV. 

XXV. 

XXVI. 
XXVII. 

XXVIII. 

XXIX. 

XXX. 

XXXI. 

XXXII. 

XXXIII. 

XXXIV. 

XXXV. 

XXXVI. 

XXXVII. 

XXXVIII. 

XXXIX. 

XL. 

XLI. 

XLII. 

XLIII. 

XLIV. 


THE  RIFT  WITHIN  THE  LUTE 

THE  QUARREL  WITH  MAUPERTUIS 

THE  FLIGHT  FROM  PRUSSIA 

THE  COMEDY  OF  FRANKFORT 

THE  ‘ESSAY  ON  THE  MANNERS  AND  MIND  OF  NATIONS  ’ 
THE  ARRIVAL  IN  SWITZERLAND 

THE  DELICES,  AND  THE  ‘ POEM  ON  THE  DISASTER)  OF 

LISBON  ’ 

‘NATURAL  LAW,’  THE  VISIT  OF  D’ALEMBERT,  AND  THE 
AFFAIR  OF  BYNG 

THE  INTERFERENCE  IN  THE  SEVEN  YEARS’  WAR,  THE 
‘GENEVA’  ARTICLE,  AND  LIFE  AT  DELICES  . . 

‘THE  LITERARY  WAR,’  AND  THE  PURCHASE  OF  FERNEY 
AND  TOURNEY 

FERNEY  

‘ CANDIDE,’  AND  ‘ ECRASEZ  L’lNFAME  ’ . . . . 

THE  BATTLE  OF  PARTICLES,  AND  THE  BATTLE  OF 
COMEDIES 

BUILDING  A CHURCH,  AND  ENDOWING  A DAUGHTER 

THE  AFFAIR  OF  CALAS • 

THE  ‘ TREATISE  ON  TOLERANCE  ’ 

THE  SIRVENS  AND  LA  BARRE 

VOLTAIRE  AND  GENEVA:  VOLTAIRE  AND  LA  HARPE 
THE  COLONY  OF  WATCHMAKERS  AND  WEAVERS  . . • 

THE  PIGALLE  STATUE,  AND  THE  VINDICATION  OF  LALLY  . 

LATTER  DAYS  

THE  LAST  VISIT 

THE  END  


218 

233 

248 

257 

268 

277 

287 

297 

307 

321 

332 

344 

358 

374 

385 

400 

416 

432 

448 

463 

479 

494 

516 


INDEX 


533 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


voltaire Frontispiece 

From  the  Statue  by  Houdon  at  the  Comtdie  Frangaise. 

ninon  de  l’enclos To  face  p.  6 


From  an  original  Picture  given  by  herself  to  the  Countess  of 
Sandwich. 

J.  B.  ROUSSEAU „ 32 

From  an  Engraving  after  a Picture  by  J.  Aved. 

LOUIS  XV „ 40 

From  the  Picture  by  Carle  Van  Loo  in  the  Museum  at  Versailles. 

MADAME  DU  CHATELET „ 70 

From  an  Engraving  after  Marianne  Loir. 

MADAME  DE  POMPADOUR 152 

From  the  Painting  by  Frangois  Boucher  in  the  possession , and  by  kind 
permission , of  Baron  Nathaniel  de  Rothschild. 

MARIE  LECZINSKA „ 170 

From  the  Picture  by  Carle  Van  Loo  in  the  Louvre. 

FREDERICK  THE  GREAT „ 208 

From  an  Engraving  by  Cunejo , after  the  Painting  by  Cunningham. 

MOREAU  DE  MAUPERTUIS „ 236 

From  an  Engraving  after  a Painting  by  Tourmere. 

lekain 290 

From  an  Engraving  after  a Painting  by  S.  B.  Le  Noir. 

THE  CHATEAU  OF  FERNEY „ 332 

From  an  Engraving. 

VOLTAIRE 368 

From  the  Bust  by  Houdon. 


Vlll 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


MADEMOISELLE  CLAIRON To  face  p.  424 

From  an  Engraving  after  a Picture  by  Carle  Van  Loo . 

VOLTAIRE „ 482 

From  the  Etching  by  Denon . 

louis  xvi „ 492 

From  the  Portrait  by  Collet  in  the  Petit  Trianon. 

Voltaire’s  declaration  of  faith  ....  „ 502 


From  the  Original  in  the  Biblioth'eque  Nationals,  Paris. 


TRIOMPHE  DE  VOLTAIRE  ’ 

From  a Contemporary  Print. 


526 


SOME  SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION 


(Euvres  Completes  de  Voltaire.  Beuchot. 

La  Jeunesse  de  Voltaire.  Gustave  Desnoir  ester  res. 

Voltaire  au  Chateau  de  Cirey.  Gustave  Desnoiresterres. 

Voltaire  a la  Cour.  Gustave  Desnoiresterres. 

Voltaire  et  Frederic.  Gustave  Desnoiresterres . 

Voltaire  aux  Delices.  Gustave  Desnoiresterres. 

Voltaire  et  J.  J.  Rousseau.  Gustave  Desnoiresterres. 

Voltaire  et  Geneve.  Gustave  Desnoiresterres. 

Voltaire.  Son  Retour  et  sa  Mort.  Gustave  Desnoiresterres . 
Voltaire.  Morley. 

Vie  de  Voltaire.  Condorcet. 

Mon  Sejour  aupres  de  Voltaire.  Collini. 

Memoires  sur  Voltaire.  Long  champ  et  Wagniere . 

Critical  Essays.  Carlyle. 

Vie  de  Voltaire.  Abbe  Duvernet. 

Le  Roi  Voltaire.  A.  Houssaye . 

Voltaire  et  son  Temps.  F.  Bungener. 

Voltaire  a Ferney.  M.  Bavoux. 

The  Life  of  Voltaire.  James  Barton. 

Voltaire  et  le  President  de  Brosses.  Foisset. 

Les  Ennemis  de  Voltaire.  Charles  Nisard. 

Menage  et  Finances  de  Voltaire.  Nicolardot . 

Voltaire  et  le  Voltairisme.  Nourrisson . 

Voltaire  au  College.  Henri  Beaune. 

Voltaire  et  les  Genevois.  Gabarel. 

Vie  Privee  de  Voltaire  et  de  Madame  du  Chatelet.  Madame 
Graffigny . 

Voltaire’s  Visit  to  England.  Archibald  Ballantyne. 

Voltaire,  sa  Vie  et  ses  (Euvres.  Eugene  Noel. 

Voltaire  et  Rousseau.  Maugras. 

Voltaire  avant  et  pendant  la  Guerre  de  Sept  Ans.  Due  de  Broglie. 
Bolingbroke  : and  Voltaire  in  England.  Churton  Collins. 

V Voltaire  for  English  Readers.  Colonel  Hamley. 


X 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


Voltaire  et  Madame  du  Chatelet.  Havard . 

Centenaire  de  Voltaire.  Victor  Hugo. 

Vie  Intime  de  Voltaire  aux  Delices  et  Ferney.  Perry  et  Maugras . 
La  Physique  de  Voltaire.  E.  Saigey. 

IListoire  Litteraire  de  Voltaire.  Marquis  de  Luchet. 

Memoir es  de  Marmontel. 

Memoires,  ou  Essai  sur  la  Musique.  Gretry . 

Memoires.  Madame  de  Genlis. 

Memoires  sur  la  Vie  de  Ninon  de  l’Enclos. 

Memoires.  President  Henault. 

Memoires.  Saint-Simon. 

Memoires.  Marquis  d'Argenson. 

Journal  et  Memoires.  Marais. 

Memoires.  Madame  d’Epinay. 

Journal.  Colie. 

Memoires.  Comte  de  Segur. 

Memoires  et  Correspondanee.  Diderot. 

Souvenirs  d’un  Citoyen.  Formey. 

La  Jeunesse  de  Florian,  ou  Memoires  d’un  jeune  Espagnol. 
Memoires  de  Madame  du  Hausset. 

Memoires  et  Lettres  du  Cardinal  de  Bernis. 

Madame  de  Pompadour.  De  Goncourt. 

Letters  of  an  English  Traveller.  Martin  Sherlock. 

The  State  of  Music  in  France  and  Italy.  Dr.  Burney. 

A View  of  Society  and  Manners  in  France,  etc.  Dr.  John  Moore . 
Memoires.  Lekain . 

Lettres.  Madame  Suard. 

Lettres  et  Pensees  du  Marechal  Prince  de  Ligne. 

The  Private  Correspondence  of  Garrick. 

Lettres  du  Chevalier  de  Boufiiers  sur  son  Voyage  en  Suisse. 

Letters  of  Horace  Walpole. 

Frederick  the  Great.  Carlyle. 

Frederick  the  Great  and  his  Times.  T.  Campbell. 

(Euvres.  Frederick  the  Great. 

La  Jeunesse  du  grand  Frederic.  Lavisse. 

Mes  Souvenirs  de  Vingt  Ans  a Berlin.  Thiebault. 

^Critical  and  Historical  Essays.  Macaulay. 

(Euvres  du  Marquis  de  Villette. 

The  Early  History  of  Charles  James  Fox.  Trevelyan. 

Lettres  de  l’Abbe  Galiani. 

Causeries.  Sainte-Beuve. 

Autobiography.  Lady  Morgan. 

Autobiography.  Gibbon. 


SOME  SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION 


XI 


Lettres  de  Mdlle.  de  Lespinasse. 

Essay  on  Shakespeare.  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Montagu. 

Memoires.  Mademoiselle  Clairon. 

Memoires  de  Madame  de  Staal-Delaunay. 

Le  Conseiller  Francois  Tronchin  et  ses  Amis.  Henry  Tronchin. 
Correspondance  Litteraire.  Grimm. 

Correspondance  inedite  du  Roi  Stanislas-Augustus  Poniatowski  et  de 
Madame  Geoffrin. 

Lettres  inedites  de  Madame  la  Marquise  du  Chatelet. 

Biographie  de  Albert  de  Haller. 

Memoires.  Bachaumont. 

Le  Salon  de  Madame  Necker.  D'Haussonville. 

Les  Mots  de  Voltaire.  Lefort  et  Buguet . 

^La  Philosophie  de  Voltaire.  Bersot. 

Correspondance  complete  de  Madame  du  Deffand. 

(Euvres.  D'Alembert. 

Memoires.  Comte  de  Montlosier. 

Memoires.  Due  de  Bichelieu. 

Vie  Privee  du  Marechal  de  Richelieu. 

Rousseau  et  les  Genevois.  Gabarel. 

Rousseau.  Morley. 

Jean  Calas  et  sa  Famille.  Coquerel. 

Dix-huitieme  Siecle  : Etudes  Litteraires.  Faguet. 

Histoire  du  Dix-huitieme  Siecle.  Bacretelle. 

Stanislaus  et  Marie  Leczinska.  Des  Beaulx. 

Vie  de  Maupertuis.  La  Beaumelle. 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  BOYHOOD 

In  1694,  when  Louis  XI Y.  was  at  the  height  of  that  military 
glory  which  at  once  dazzled  and  ruined  France,  there  was  born  in 
Paris  on  November  21  a little,  puny,  weak,  sickly  son. 

The  house  into  which  the  infant  was  born  was  the  ordinary 
house  of  a thoroughly  comfortable  well-to-do  bourgeois  of  the 
time  and  place.  A notary  was  M.  Arouet  pere.  His  father  had 
been  a prosperous  linen-draper  ; and  Arouet  the  son,  shrewd  and 
thrifty  in  affairs,  had  bought,  after  the  custom  of  his  time  and 
his  profession,  first  one  post  and  then  another,  until  he  was  a 
man  of  some  wealth  and,  for  his  class,  of  some  position.  Among 
his  clients  he  could  number  the  Dukes  of  Sully  and  of  Richelieu, 
memoir- writing  Saint-Simon,  the  poet  Boileau,  and  the  immortal 
Ninon  de  l’Enclos.  He  had  a country  house  at  Chatenay,  five 
miles  from  Paris.  Plenty  of  sound  common-sense,  liberal, 
practical,  hospitable ; just  enough  taste  for  literature  to  enjoy  a 
doze  over  a book  in  the  evening  when  his  day’s  labour  was  done ; 
eminently  respected  and  respectable  ; decently  acquiescing  in  the 
national  religion  as  such,  and  with  no  particular  faith  in  anything 
but  hard  work  and  monetary  prudence  ; not  a little  hasty  in 
temper  and  deadly  obstinate — such  was  Maitre  Arouet. 

At  thirty-four  years  old  he  had  been  prosperous  enough  to 
marry  one  Mademoiselle  d’Aumard,  of  Poitou,  whose  gentle  birth 
and  a certain  refinement  of  type,  not  at  all  shared  by  her  husband, 
formed  the  chief  part  of  her  dowry.  The  biographers  of  her 
younger  son  have  done  their  best  to  prove  the  d’Aumard  family 

B 


2 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1694-1704 


something  more  noble,  and  the  Arouet  family  something  less 
bourgeois , than  they  were.  They  need  not  have  troubled.  The 
man  who  afterwards  called  himself  Voltaire  valued  his  ancestry 
not  at  all,  and  owed  it  nothing.  The  most  painstaking  research 
has  been  unable  to  prove  that'  there  was  a single  one  of  his 
forbears  who  had  the  smallest  taste  for  literature,  or  mental 
endowments  above  the  common.  Some  have  pretended  that  he 
owed  to  his  mother  the  delicacy  of  his  wit,  as  he  certainly  owed 
to  her  the  delicacy  of  his  body.  Beyond  the  fact  that  she  was 
the  friend  of  her  husband’s  brilliant  and  too  famous  client  Ninon, 
and  of  three  abbes — clever,  musical,  and  profligate — who  were 
the  amis  de  la  maison  Arouet  and  always  about  it,  the  theory 
-'■yx  is  without  the  smallest  foundation.  ( Her  great  son  does  not 
mention  her  half  a dozen  times  in  that  vast  bulk  of  writings  he 
left  the  world. ) To  him  she  was  but  a shadow  ; to  the  world  she 
must  needs  bobut  a shadow  too. 

She  had  two  living  children  when  this  last  frail  baby  was 
born  on  that  November  Sunday — Armand  of  ten  and  Catherine 
of  nine.  She  had  lost  two  infants,  and  she  never  really  recovered 
this  last  one’s  birth. 

He  himself  had  at  the  first  but  a poor  chance  of  life.  He  was 
hurriedly  baptised  on  Monday,  November  22,  1694,  by  the  names 
of  Francis  Marie.  Every  morning  the  nourrice  came  down  from 
the  attic  where  she  tended  him  to  say  he  could  not  live  an  hour. 
And  every  day  one  of  those  abbes,  who  had  taken  on  himself  the 
office  of  godfather  and  was  called  Chateauneuf,  ran  up  to  the  attic 
to  see  the  baby  and  suggest  remedies  to  the  nurse. 

Perhaps  the  nurse  did  not  try  the  remedies.  At  any  rate,  the 
puny  infant  disappointed  the  expectations  of  his  relatives,  and 
lived.  : Zozo  they  called  him,  or,  from  the  wilfulness  of  his  baby 
temper,  ‘ le  petit  volontaire.)  Chateauneuf ’s  interest  in  him 
increased  daily.  He  must  have  detected  an  extraordinarily 
precocious  intelligence  in  the  small  creature,  since,  when  he  was 
but  three  years  old,  the  abbe  had  begun  to  perform  his  godfatherly 
duties  as  he  understood  them,  and  to  teach  the  child  a certain 
ribald  deistical  poem  by  J.  B.  Rousseau  called  ‘ Le  Moisade.* 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  at  this  period,  and  for  about  a 
hundred  years  afterwards,  the  name  of  abb6  was  synonymous  with 
that  of  scoundrel.  Free  liver  and  free  thinker,  gay,  base,  and 


Me.  1-10] 


THE  BOYHOOD 


3 


witty — ‘ qui  n’etait  d’eglise  que  pour  les  benefices,’  as  that  little 
godson  said  of  him  hereafter — Chateauneuf  was  not  worse  than 
most  of  his  kind,  and  perhaps,  if  anything,  was  rather  better. 
He  accepted,  indeed,  the  emoluments  of  a religion  in  which  he  did 
not  only  not  believe  but  at  which  he  openly  scoffed,  in  order  to  live 
at  his  ease  a life  quite  profligate  and  disreputable.  It  is  said,  or 
he  said,  that  he  had  the  honour  of  being  Ninon  de  l’Enclos’  last 
lover.  But  he  was  both  goodnatured  and  kindhearted,  and  after 
his  fashion  was  really  fond  of  the  little  godson  anc^ doing  his  best 
to  lead  his  baby  mind  away  from  a superstition  wmch  he  himself 
had  found,  to  be  sure,  tolerably  profitable. 

What  a strange  picture  it  is  ! This  child  lisped  scoffings  as 
other  children  lisp  prayers.  He  had  very  big  brown  eyes,  bright 
with  intelligence,  in  his  little,  wizened,  old  man’s  face.  The 
precocity  greatly  entertained  Chateauneuf.  Pere  Arouet  may 
have  been  amused  too,  in  private,  at  this  infant  unbeliever — the 
state  of  the  Church  making  it  hard  then  for  any  man,  at  once 
honest  and  reasonable,  to  put  faith  in  her  teachings.  The  society 
of  her  three  abbes  and  her  Ninon  must  have  made  delicate 
Madame  pretty  used  to  free  thought. 

So  the  little  boy  learnt  his  ‘ Moisade  * by  heart  and  was  taught 
to  read  out  of  the  4 Fables  ’ of  La  Fontaine. 

He  was  but  seven  when  his  mother  died.  Sister  Catherine  of 
sixteen  was  already  thinking  of  a dot  and  a husband,  as  a prudent 
French  girl  should.  (Brother  Armand  of  seventeen — ‘my  Jan- 
senist  of  a brother  ’ — had  imbibed  extreme  religious  opinions  at 
the  seminary  of  Saint  Magloire  and  was  an  austere  youthful 
bigot. 

So  Zozo  scrambled  up  as  best  he  might  among  mortgages, 
bonds,  and  shares  ; designed  from  the  first  by  his  father  to  be 
avocat  [ wherein  the  family  influence  would  be  powerful  to  help 
him),  a lonely  and  precocious  little  creature,  and  still  the  infant 
protege  of  Chateauneuf. 

In  the  December  of  1704,  when  he  was  ten  years  old,  he  first 
affixed  his  name — his  baby  name  of  Zozo — to  a letter  which 
brother  Armand  dutifully  wrote  at  his  father’s  request  to  wish  an 
aunt  in  Poitou  the  compliments  of  the  New  Year  1705.  That 
letter  may  be  taken  as  the  small  beginning  of  one  of  the  most 
enormous  correspondences  in  the  world,  which  new  discoveries  are 

B 2 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1704-06 


t/* 


still  increasing  in  bulk,  and  which,  as  has  been  said,  seems  likely 
to  go  on  increasing  until  the  Day  of  Judgment. 

In  that  very  same  year  (. 1704  Zozo  was  sent  to  the  Jesuit 
College  of  St.  Louis-le-Grana  as  a parlour  boardejy  The  school 
was  only  a few  minutes’  walk  from  his  own  home.  But  in  that 
home  there  was  no  one  to  look  after  him  save  the  busy  middle- 
aged  notary  fully  occupied  in  affairs.  Catherine  was  married. 
Armand  had  already  succeeded  in  repelling  a volatile  child’s 
spirit  with  his  narrow  harshness.  So  Zozo  went  to  school,  and 
took  up  his  place  in  the  very  lowest  class. 

St.  Louis-le-Grand — ‘ the  Eton  of  France  ’ — had  two  thousand 
pupils,  mostly  belonging  to  the  French  aristocracy.  Louis  XIV. 
had  visited  it,  and  left  it  his  name.  It  was  entirely  under  Jesuit 
influence,  and  taught,  or  omitted  to  teach,  exactly  according  to 
the  royal  pleasure  and  the  fashion  of  the  day. 

A very  thin-faced,  keen-witted  little  youth  was  its  new  ten- 
year-old  scholar.  It  did  not  take  him  long  to  conceive  a passion 
for  Cicero,  for  Horace,  and  for  Virgil.  He  soon  discovered  that 
he  was  learning  ‘neither  the  constitution  nor  interests  of  my 
^country:  not  a word  of  mathematics  or  of  sound  philosophy. 
( I learnt  Latin  and  nonsense.’^  But  he  applied  himself  to  that 
‘ Latin  and  nonsense  ’ with  that  passionate  voracity  for  informa- 
tion, useful  or  useless,  good,  bad,  or  indifferent,  which  he  retained 
till  his  death.  He  must  have  been  one  of  the  quickest  boys  that 
ever  Jesuit  master  taught.  He  had  an  intelligence  like  an  arrow 
— and  an  arrow  which  always  went  straight  to  the  mark.  / Before 
he  was  eleven  he  was  writing  bad  verses  with  a facility  and 
enthusiasm  alike  extraordinary.  The  masters  were,  with  one 
exception,  his  friends  and  admirers.  While  the  other  boys  were 
at  their  games  this  one  would  walk  and  talk  with  the  Fathers  ; 
and  when  they  told  him  that  he  should  play  like  the  others,  he 
looked  up  with  those  brilliant  eyes  that  lighted  the  little,  lean, 
sallow  face  like  leaping  flames — ‘ Everybody  must  jump  after  his 
own  fashion,’  said  he. 

His  especial  tutor  was  a certain  Abbe  d’ Olivet,  then  a young 
man,  for  whom  the  promising  little  scholar  conceived  a lifelong 
friendship.  Another  tutor,  called  Tournemine,  was  also  first  the 
boy’s  teacher  and  then  his  pupil.  Yet  another  Father,  called  Poree, 
would  listen  long  and  late  to  the  child’s  sharp  questions  on  history 


Mi.  10-12] 


THE  BOYHOOD 


5 


and  politics.  4 That  boy,’  said  he,  ‘ wants  to  weigh  the  great 
questions  of  Europe  in  his  little  scales.’ 

He  had  friends  among  the  boys  too,  as  well  as  the  masters. 
It  was  at  school  he  met  the  d’Argensons — afterwards  powers  to 
help  him  in  the  French  Government — Cideville,  and  d’Argental 
his  lifelong  friend,  whom  he  called  his  guardian  angel. 

In  1705  those  fluent  verses  he  had  written  came  to  the  notice 
of  Godpapa  Chateauneuf.  As  a reward  the  abbe  took  him  to  see 
Ninon  de  l’Enclos,  that  marvellous  woman  who  was  as  charming 
at  eighty  as  at  eighteen,  who  ‘ looked  on  love  as  a pleasure  which 
bound  her  to  no  duties  and  on  friendship  as  something  sacred,’ 
and  was  in  some  sort  an  answer  to  her  own  prayer,  ‘ God  make 
me  an  honest  man  but  never  an  honest  woman  ! ’ She  received 
the  child  in  the  midst  of  her  brilliant  circle  with  that  infinite  tact 
and  kindness  which  have  made  her  as  immortal  as  her  frailties. 
His  bright,  quick  answers,  his  self-confidence,  his  childish  store 
of  information  delighted  her.  Chateauneuf  said  that  she  saw  in 
him  i the  germ  of  a great  man.’  Perhaps  she  did.  (jVhen  she 
died  a few  months  later,  she  left  him  two  thousand  francs  in  her 
will,  with  which  to  buy  books.)  And  the  1 great  man,’  many  years 
after,  wrote  an  account  of  the  interview  as  if  it  had  happened 
yesterday. 

He  went  back  to  school  after  that  episode,  and  learnt,  and 
knew  he  was  learning,  though  he  was  only  twelve  years  old,  ‘ a 
prodigious  number  of  things  ’ for  which  he  had  no  talent. 

Poree  taught  him  a good  deal  of  Latin,  and  the  primers  a 
very  little  Greek.  He  learnt  no  history,  no  science,  and  no 
modern  languages.  That  he  acquired  a knowledge  of  the  history 
and  government  of  France  is  as  undoubted  as  that  he  was  never 
formally  taught  it. 

Young  Abbe  d’Olivet  inspired  him  with  his  own  love  of  Cicero. 
Chateauneuf  had  taught  his  godson  to  worship  Corneille ; and 
young  Arouet  championed  him  valiantly  against  Father  Tourne- 
mine’s  dear  hero,  Racine. 

Other  seeds  which  Chateauneuf 
were  growing  and  ripening  fast, 
masters,  Father  Lejay,  answered  a 
retort  with  the  words  ‘ Wretch  ! you  will  one  day  be  the  standard- 
bearer  of  Deism  in  France  ! ’ 


d sown  in  a childish  heart 
His  one  enemy  among  the 
too  brilliant  and  too  daring 


6 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1706-12 


The  enterprising  Deist  was  still  only  twelve  when,  encouraged 
by  Ninon’s  pension  perhaps  and  the  success  of  some  impromptu 
verses  made  in  class,  he  attempted  a tragedy  called  ‘ Amulius  and 
Numitor.’  He  burnt  it  hereafter — very  wisely  no  doubt.  But 
verse-making  was  in  his  blood,  though  his  blood  was  Maitre 
Arouet’s  and  the  noble,  dull  Aumards’  of  Poitou.  Play-acting 
at  the  school  prize-givings  encouraged  a love  of  the  drama,  also 
inborn.  Francis  Marie  Arouet  was  not  yet  thirteen  when  he 
wrote  a versified  petition  to  Louis  XIV.  to  grant  an  old  soldier 
a pension,  wherein  the  compliments  were  so  delicately  turned  as 
to  attract  the  momentary  attention  of  the  best  flattered  monarch 
who  ever  sat  upon  a throne.  The  old  soldier  obtained  his  pension, 
and  Francis  Marie  enough  fame  and  flattery  to  turn  a youthful 
head. 

When  he  was  fifteen,  in  1709,  Chateauneuf  died,  Malplaquet 
was  lost,  and  France  starving  to  pay  for  her  defeats.  In  the 
midst  of  that  bitter  winter  of  famine,  when  young  Arouet’s  high 
place  in  class  always  kept  him  away  from  the  comforting  stove, 
he  called  out  to  the  lucky  dullard  who  was  always  near  it,  ‘ Get 
out,  or  I’ll  send  you  to  warm  with  Pluto  ! * ‘ Why  don’t  you  say 

hell  ? ’ asked  the  other.  ‘ Bah  ! ’ replied  Arouet ; 4 the  one  is  no 
more  a certainty  than  the  other.’ 

Here  spoke  the  religious  influence  of  the  priestly  godfather, 
who,  before  he  died,  had  tried  to  form  the  godson’s  mind  by 
recounting  to  him  some  of  Ninon  de  l’Enclos’  most  marvellous 
adventures. 

In  1710,  at  the  midsummer  prize-giving,  Arouet,  runs  the 
story,  took  so  many  prizes  as  to  attract  the  notice  of  the  famous 
J.  B.  Rousseau,  the  author  of  the  4 Moisade,’  the  first  poet  in 
France,  and  once  shoemaker  to  the  Arouet  family.  The  great 
man  congratulated  and  encouraged  the  boy  who  was  to  be  so 
much  greater.  To  be  sure  he  was  an  ugly  boy  for  all  that  keen 
look  of  his  ! Ugly  boy  and  mediocre  poet  were  to  fight  each 
other  tooth  and  nail  hereafter,  with  the  ugly  boy  the  winner  for 
ever. 

If  young  Arouet  was  anything  like  an  older  Voltaire,  he  knew 
how  to  play  as  well  as  how  to  work,  and  how  to  work  gaily  with 
a jest  always  ready  to  relieve  the  tedium. 

The  defeat  of  Blenheim  had  shadowed  the  year  1704  when  he 


NINON  DE  L’ENCLOS. 


Ms.  12-18] 


THE  BOYHOOD 


7 


went  to  school.  In  1711,  when  he  left  it,  three  heirs  to  the  throne 
died  one  after  the  other  as  if  the  judgment  of  God  had  already 
fallen  upon  their  wicked  house.  Abroad,  were  Marlborough  and 
defeat ; at  home,  death,  hunger,  and  religious  persecution.  Arouet 
had  a heart  always  sensitive  to  misfortune,  but  he  was  gay,  seven- 
teen, and  fresh  from  drudgery. 

When  he  came  home  from  St.  Louis-le-Grand  in  that  August 
of  1711  it  was  with  every  intention  on  his  father’s  part,  and  no 
kind  of  intention  on  his  own,  that  he  should  become  avocat. 

Was  it  the  passing  success  of  that  poetical  petition  to  the 
king  which  had  put  the  idea  of  literature  as  a profession  into  his 
head  ? Was  it  Ninon’s  pension  ? or  the  approval  of  poet 
Eousseau  ? The  love  of  letters  had  been  in  this  boy  always, 
a dominant  taste,  a ruling  passion,  which  he  could  no  more  help 
than  he  could  help  the  feebleness  of  his  body  or  the  astounding 
vigour  of  his  mind. 

He  took  the  earliest  opportunity  of  announcing  to  his  father 
that  he  intended  to  devote  himself  to  writing. 

M.  Arouet  received  the  announcement  exactly  as  it  might 
have  been  expected  he  would.  Literature  ! Better  be  a lackey 
or  a play-actor  at  once.  Literature  ! What  did  that  mean  ? 
The  Bastille  for  a couplet,  ruin,  poverty,  disgrace.  Eousseau 
himself  had  just  been  degraded  from  the  highest  place  to  the 
lowest  for  verses  he  was  only  supposed  to  have  written. 
‘ Literature,’  said  Maitre  Arouet  with  the  irate  dogmatism  which 
takes  no  denial,  ‘ is  the  profession  of  the  man  who  wishes  to  be 
useless  to  society,  a burden  to  his  relatives,  and  to  die  of  hunger.’ 
The  relatives,  fearing  the  burden,  vociferously  agreed  with  him. 

Arouet  p&re  had  most  unluckily  once  taken  wine  with  the 
great  Corneille  and  found  that  genius  the  most  insufferable  old 
bore,  of  the  very  lowest  conversation.  The  indignant  parent 
made  the  house  of  Arouet  exceedingly  unquiet  with  his  fumings 
and  growlings.  Pressure  was  very  strong  and  Fran§ois  Marie 
was  eighteen.  The  youth  who  said  that  his  motto  was  ‘ To  the 
point  ’ was  soon  engaged  in  the  matchless  intricacies  of  French 
law,  as  yet  unsimplified  by  a master  mind  into  the  Code 
Napoleon. 

What  would  be  the  natural  result  of  a distasteful  occupation, 
youth,  wit,  and  gaiety  in  eighteenth- century  Paris  ? Such  a 


8 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1712—13 

result  supervened  with  young  Arouet  almost  at  once.  V Boy 
though  he  was,  Chateauneuf  had  already  introduced  him  into  a 
brilliant,  libertine  society  called  ‘The  Epicureans  of  the  Temple.’ 
At  its  head  was  the  usual  abbe — one  Chaulieu — ‘ the  dissolute 
Anacreon  ’ who  drew  a revenue  of  thirty  thousand  francs  from 
his  benefices  to  pay  for  his  excesses.  Vile,  witty,  and  blasphe- 
mous, he  was  not  more  so  than  the  noble  and  titled  company 
over  which  he  presided.  It  had  every  vice  but  one — that  of 
dulness.  Most  of  its  members  were  old  men,  and  as  literary 
critics  of  the  evanescent  literature  of  the  hour,  unrivalled.  To 
them,  it  is  said,  virtue  and  faith  were  alike  the  prejudices  of  fools. 
The  notary’s  son,  who  was  nobody  and  had  done  nothing,  had 
but  two  claims  for  admission  to  such  a society : one  was  the 
mental  emancipation  he  had  received  from  his  godfather,  and  the 
other  the  daring  brilliancy  all  his  own.  The  Temple  suppers 
were  soon  incomplete  without  him.  Young  Arouet  was  already 
showing  himself  a versifier  of  astounding  audacity.  The 
company  of  dukes  and  nobles,  of  men  vastly  his  superior  in  age 
and  acquirements,  did  not  daunt  him  in  the  least.  A penniless 
boy,  he  had  that  careless  ease  with  great  people — a certain  charming 
air  of  familiarity — which  never  offended  if  it  made  old  men  smile 
at  a boyish  vanity,  and  which  he  never  afterwards  lost.  Some 
of  his  mots  at  those  suppers  have  come  down  to  posterity,  and 
were  not  less  acceptable  to  the  Temple  because  they  are  no  longer 
transcribable.  At  an  epicurean  supper  at  the  Prince  of  Conti’s, 
young  Arouet  could  turn  to  the  company  and  exclaim,  ‘ Here  we 
are  all  princes  or  poets  ! ’ 

One  poet  received  very  short  shrift  from  respectable,  sensible 
old  M.  Arouet  pere , when  he  came  home  in  the  small  hours  of 
the  morning  from  these  orgies.  The  determined  old  man  locked 
the  house  and  went  to  bed,  and  behold  ! Francis  Marie  must 
pay  for  his  amusements  by  walking  the  streets  till  morning. 
That  did  not  daunt  him.  Nothing  daunted  him.  He  was  young 
and  enjoying  himself,  with  the  keenest  sense  of  the  ludicrous, 
and  perfectly  willing  to  take  his  pleasures — at  a cost.  One  day, 
finding  himself  shut  out  as  usual,  he  went  to  sleep  in  the  porter’s 
chair  in  the  Palais  de  Justice,  and  was  carried,  still  asleep,  the 
next  morning,  into  a cafe  hard  by,  by  two  legal  wags,  his  friends. 
The  recollection  of  Brother  Armand’s  long,  disapproving  face  at 


JEt.  18—19] 


THE  BOYHOOD 


9 


home  only  lent  additional  piquancy  to  Arouet’s  revels  abroad. 
Another  day,  a noble  lady  with  literary  aspirations  gives  him  a 
hundred  louis  for  tactfully  correcting  her  bad  rhymes.  Young 
Arouet,  idly  watching  an  auction,  bids  for  a carriage  and  pair  and 
has  them  knocked  down  to  him.  He  drives  about  Paris  all  day 
with  his  friends,  and  at  three  o’clock  in  the  morning  takes  the 
carriage  home  and  tries  to  get  the  horses  into  his  father’s  stables. 
The  noise  wakes  up  Maitre  Arouet,  who  turns  his  scapegrace  out 
of  doors  there  and  then,  and  sells  the  horses  and  carriage  the  very 
next  day.  One  likes  the  peppery  old  father  with  his  dogged 
determination.  He  would  have  won  the  battle  over  any  other 
son  but  this  one,  and  deserved  to  win.  ( He  sent  the  prodigal  to 
Caen  in  disgrace,  and  Caen  fell  in  love  at  once  with  a youth  so 
clever  and  amusing,  and  turned  the  exile  to  a delights  There 
was  a charming  literary  lady  here  also,  who  abandoned  her 
protege,  however,  when  she  found  he  could  write  indecorous 
verses  too,  and  there  was  a Jesuit  Father  who  prophesied  a great 
future  for  this  brilliant  madcap.  Then  the  old  notary  at  home 
sent  a message  to  his  Fran§ois  Marie — if  he  would  come  back 
and  settle  to  work  he  would  buy  him  a good  post ; in  time,  get 
him  made  Counsel  to  the  Parliament  of  Paris.  1 Tell  my  father,’ 
was  the  answer,  ‘ 1 do  not  want  any  place  that  can  be  bought. 

I will  make  one  for  myself  that  will  cost  nothing.’ 

Twenty-six  years  after,  one  Voltaire,  in  his  ‘ Life  of  Moli&re,’  - 
wrote  that  all  who  had  made  a name  in  the  beaux-arts  had  done 
so  in  spite  of  their  relations.  ‘Nature  has  always  been  much 
stronger  with  them  than  education  ; ’ and  again,  ‘ I saw  early 
that  one  can  neither  resist  one’s  ruling  taste,  nor  fight  one’s 
destiny.’  ) It  was  so  in  this  boy’s  case  at  any  rate.  Some  of  the 
monetary  prudence  inherited  from  the  old  notary,  and  which  was 
so  greatly  to  distinguish  a later  Voltaire  from  most  of  his  brothers 
of  the  pen,  was  in  embryo  within  him  now.  Yet  when  he  got 
back  to  Paris  after  those  few  months  at  Caen  tte  was  as  gay,  wild, 
and  determined  as  ever,  and  M.  Arouet,  in  despair,  procured  for 
him  the  post  of  page  or  attache  to  the  Marquis  de  Chateauneuf 
(brother  of  the  abbe)  and  shipped  him  off  with  that  ambassador 
to  the  Netherlands  in  the  September  of  1718. ) 

The  Marquis  de  Chateauneuf  and  suite  reached  The  Hague  on 
September  28,  1718,  but  did  not  formally  enter  the  town  until 


10 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTA  [RE 


[1713 


later.  ‘ It  is  amusing/  one  of  the  suite  wrote,  ‘ to  make  an  entry 
into  a city  where  you  have  already  been  living  several  weeks/ 

Page,  attache,  or  diplomat,  whichever  people  called  him,  this 
page,  attache , or  diplomat  was  going  to  enjoy  himself.  Before 
they  were  well  established  at  The  Hague  he  must  needs  fall  head 
over  ears  in  love  with  a certain  Olympe  Dunoyer,  the  daughter  of 
an  adventurous  mother  who  lived  by  her  wits  and  an  audacious 
society  periodical  called  ‘ The  Quintessence/  Olympe,  or,  more 
endearingly,  Pimpette,  was  one-and-twenty.  She  knew  something 
of  the  world  already.  With  such  a mother  and  the  impecunious 
roving  life  they  had  led,  that  was  inevitable.  She  was  not  pretty, 
her  lover  said  long  after.  She  was  what  is  a great  deal  more 
dangerous — fascinating  and  impulsive.  He  gave  her  from  the 
first  a boy’s  honest  ardent  affection.  He  wrote  her  immensely 
long,  vigorous,  passionate  epistles.  He  originated  the  most 
beautiful  youthful  scheme  by  which  Protestant  Pimpette  (Madame 
Dunoyer  and  her  daughter  were  Protestant)  was  to  be  brought 
back  to  the  true  Church,  and  to  Paris,  where  her  Catholic  father 
and  sister  were  living.  For  a couple  of  months,  the  worldly 
mother  not  suspecting  its  existence,  the  course  of  true  love  ran 
smoothly.  But  one  fatal  night  Arouet  coming  home  late  after 
a blissful  interview,  encountered  his  chief.  Madame  Dunoyer 
will  certainly  disapprove  of  the  addresses  of  a penniless  boy  of 
nineteen  ! Having  a wholesome  fear  of  that  libellous  ‘ Quint- 
essence/ the  ambassador  felt  bound  to  disapprove  too.  The 
attache  must  go  back  to  France  to-morrow.  The  attache , with 
his  irresistible  energy  and  daring,  got  forty-eight  hours’  grace. 
His  valet,  Lefevre,  was  his  accomplice  ; a certain  shoemaker  was 
Pimpette’s.  A further  unavoidable  delay  in  the  time  of  Arouet’s 
departure  came  to  the  lovers’  assistance.  One  moonlit  night 
Arouet  disguised  himself,  signalled  beneath  his  mistress’s  window, 
and  drove  her  away  to  Scheveningen,  five  miles  off,  where  he  made 
her  write  three  letters  which  were  designed  to  help  his  scheme  of 
getting  her  to  Paris.  Sometimes  they  met  at  the  obliging  shoe- 
maker’s, daring,  frightened,  and  happy,  with  the  shoemaker’s 
wife  for  a sentinel  outside. 

Of  course  the  ambassador  got  wind  of  the  interviews,  and 
forbade  his  attache  to  leave  the  embassy.  But  the  irrepressible 
lover  would  see  his  mistress — ‘ though  it  bring  my  head  to  the 


Mt.  19] 


THE  BOYHOOD 


11 


block.’  He  let  himself  down  from  a window  by  night,  and  met 
a trembling  Pimpette  who  had  escaped,  heaven  knows  how  ! from 
the  Argus-eyed  mother — outside  her  home. 

Then  the  ambassador  offered  this  impossible  attache  his 
choice — to  leave  Holland  immediately — or  in  a week’s  time  with 
a solemn  vow  not  to  leave  his  quarters  meanwhile.  Arouet  chose 
the  week  and  the  vow.  He  sent  Lefevre  with  a letter  to  Pim- 
pette. If  I cannot  come  to  you,  you  must  come  to  me  ! ‘ Send 

Lisbette  at  three  o’clock  and  I will  give  her  a parcel  for  you 
containing  a boy’s  dress.’  The  mad  night  came,  and  Pimpette, 
the  most  endearing  boy  in  the  world,  with  it.  The  whole 
escapade  was  wild  enough.  It  says  something  for  this  im- 
passioned Arouet  of  nineteen  that  at  its  worst  it  was  nothing 
but  an  escapade.  ‘ My  love  is  founded  on  a perfect  esteem,’  he 
had  written,  and  ‘ I love  your  honour  as  I love  you.’  He  rallied 
her,  not  a little  gaily,  in  prose  and  verse,  after  that  dear  meeting. 
She  was  such  a pretty  boy  ! ‘ I fear  you  did  not  take  out  your 

sword  in  the  street,  which  was  all  that  was  needed  to  make  a 
perfect  young  man  ! ’ 4 But  while  I am  teasing  you  I learn 

that  Lefevre  suspected  you  yesterday.’  Of  course  he  did.  But 
Lefevre  would  not  betray  his  master  to  the  ambassador,  who  had 
more  than  a suspicion  of  the  interview.  And  the  next  night 
Arouet  broke  his  parole,  got  out  of  the  window,  and  met  Pimpette 
outside  her  house  once  more.  The  ambassador  heard  of  this  too, 
wrote  a furious  letter  to  Maitre  Arouet  describing  the  whole  affair,, 
and)  on  December  18,  1713,  the  lover  was  despatched  home.  , 

fie  went  on  writing  to  Pimpette,  of  course.  It  was  her  fate 
that  agitated  him — not  his.  She  must  be  sure  to  burn  his 
letters — she  must  not  expose  herself  to  the  fury  of  that  termagant 
of  a mother.  She  must  take  heart ; she  must  be  true  to  him  ! 
The  letter  from  the  boat  which  was  carrying  him  to  France  was 
full  of  that  capital,  clever  plan  for  bringing  her  over  to  the 
Jesuits — to  be  converted,  as  near  to  Arouet  as  possible,  in  Paris. 
All  these  love  letters  to  Pimpette  are  much  more  loving  than 
witty.  They  are  so  enthusiastic  and  earnest  and  young,  so 
energetic  and  devoted,  so  unselfish  and  hopeful!  They  make 
one  feel  young  to  read  them.  It  has  been  said  that  they  are  not 
the  letters  of  Mirabeau.  They  are  those  of  an  honester  man. 

The  very  first  thing  Arouet  did  when  he  reached  Paris  on  this 


12 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1713-14 


Christmas  Eve  of  1713  was  exactly  what  he  had  told  Pimpette 
he  would  do.  He  went  straight  to  his  old  master,  Father 
Tournemine,  at  St.  Louis-le-Grand,  to  whom  he  had  already 
written  some  of  the  circumstances,  to  arrange  with  the  Jesuits 
for  bringing  back  the  lost  Protestant  sheep  to  the  Roman  fold. 
Arouet  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  mention  that  the  lost  sheep 
was,  in  point  of  fact,  a lamb — charming,  and  one-and-twenty — 
or  that  he  had  ever  seen  her.  Good  Tournemine  promised  to  do 
his  very  best  to  get  Pimpette’s  father  to  take  her  in.  In  fact  the 
whole  scheme  was  working  beautifully  when  that  irascible  and 
doggec}  old  Maitre  Arouet,  who  had  received  not  only  the  ambas- 
sador’s version  of  the  affair  but  the  furious  Madame  Dunoyer’s, 
positively  obtained  a lettre  de  cachet  for  his  scapegrace  son,  with 
which  to  get  him  arrested  and  imprisoned. ) 

Young  Arouet  had  not  been  home,  wnich  was  very  prudent 
of  him.  His  presence  would  only  have  further  exasperated  his 
father.  The  lettre  de  cachet  was  not  put  into  effect.  The  lover 
went  on  loving,  adoring,  and  writing  to  his  mistress.  What  was 
an  angry  father  after  all  ? A necessary  role  in  the  comedy. 
What  was  distance  or  opposition,  what  was  anything  or  anybody 
to  Arouet  if  Pimpette  only  loved  him  ? Of  the  two,  she  was  far 
the  more  cool  and  reasonable.  She  urged  him  to  study  law  as 
his  father  bade  him.  And  for  her  sake  he  did  even  that.  A year 
or  two  later  she  became  Countess  of  Winterfeld.  Some  years 
later  still,  he  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  some  of  his  own  love 
letters  to  her  figuring  in  a scandalous  work  of  her  mother’s  called 
1 Lettres  Historiques  et  Galantes.’  Even  these  events  did  not 
disturb  a certain  tender  respect  for  her  memory  which  he  bore  to 
the  end  of  his  life.  When  he  was  imprisoned  in  the  Bastille  four 
years  later,  he  still  carried  about  with  him  a little,  undated,  mis- 
spelt letter  about  one*  of  those  dear,  stolen  interviews — half 
maternal,  half  tender  in  tone — the  only  letter  of  Pimpette’s  which 
has  come  down  to  posterity. 

January  1714,  then,  beheld  Arouet  at  the  bidding  of  Pimpette, 
and  having  made  the  most  abject  apologies  to  his  father  (Francis 
Marie  was  nothing  if  not  thorough),  installed  as  clerk  to  a Maitre 
Alain,  and  living  with  that  dull  and  worthy  solicitor  and  his  wife/ 
He  learnt  something  of  law  here,  no  doubt.  Nay,  he  must  have 
learnt  a great  deal  to  be  hereafter  that  shrewd  and  capable  man 


^Et.  19-20] 


THE  BOYHOOD 


13 


of  affairs  he  proved  himself.  But  it  was  a dull  time  and  an 
unfortunate.  Maitre  Arouet  kept  his  prodigal  very  close  in  the 
matter  of  money  ; and  his  prodigal  affixed  his  name  to  certain 
bills  which  gave  him  trouble  hereafter.  Pimpette’s  letters  were 
getting  fewer  and  fewer.  Pimpette  was  false.  Then,  in  the 
August  of  this  1714,  young  Arouet  tried  for  a prize  offered  by 
the  French  Academy  for  a poem  celebrating  the  King’s  generosity 
in  giving  a new  choir  to  Notre  Dame ; and  failed.  The  failure 
attacked  La  Motte,  the  judge — the  unjust  judge,  Arouet  thought 
him — with  epigrams,  and  then  wrote  a satire,  called  ‘ Mud,’  on 
La  Motte’s  4 Fables.’  Old  Arouet  was  furious  again,  and  young 
Arouet’s  only  consolation  in  life  was  the  friendship  of  one  Theriot, 
also  clerk  to  the  Alains,  an  idle,  goodnatured,  amusing  scapegrace, 
nobody’s  enemy  but  his  own,  and  to  be  Arouet’s  friend,  though 
not  always  a faithful  friend,  for  sixty  years. 

Caumartin,  an  old  Temple  acquaintance,  reappeared  on  young 
Arouet’s  horizon  again  presently.  Caumartin  had  an  uncle,  a 
famous  old  magistrate,  the  Marquis  de  Saint- Ange,  living  at  Saint- 
Ange,  nine  miles  from  Fontainebleau.  When  young  Caumartin 
conveyed  an  invitation  to  old  Arouet  that  his  prodigal  should  go 
and  stay  with  Saint- Ange  and  resume  his  studies  there,  the  notary 
naturally  supposed  an  acceptance  would  be  the  best  thing  for 
Arouet’s  legal  prospects. 

And  not  for  his  legal  prospects  only.  The  boy  had  that 
satire,  couplets,  and  epigrams  running  through  Paris.  He  did 
not  yet  know  what  message  he  had  to  deliver  to  the  world ; did 
not  know  perhaps  that  he  had  any  message.  But  he  was  fast 
learning  the  language  in  which  it  was  to  be  spoken,  and  speak 
in  that  language  he  must,  were  the  whole  earth  peopled  by  angry 
fathers  and  conscientious  Alains. 

So  it  was  as  well  that  the  autumn  of  1714  saw  him  away  from 
P^ris  and  established  in  the  fine  old  chateau  of  the  Saint- Anges.  j 

The  old  magistrate,  however,  was  not  magistrate  only,  or ! 
chiefly  ; he  was  also  a man  of  the  world,  and  courtier.  So  it 
soon  came  about  that,  instead  of  learning  maxims  of  the  law,  the 
keen-witted  visitor  sat  and  listened,  a most  eager  and  intelligent 
audience,  to  gossip,  scandal,  bons-mots  of  the  Court  of  a bygone 
day — anecdotes  of  Henry  of  Navarre  and  personal  recollections 
of  Louis  XIY.  The  chateau  had  a splendid  library.  But  it  was 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


14 


[1714-15 


hardly  needed — ‘ Caumartin  carries  the  living  history  of  his  age 
in  his  head,*  said  his  courtly  young  guest  in  a quatrain. 

It  was  while  he  was  at  Saint- Ange  he  dashed  on  to  paper  the 
beginning  of  what  was  afterwards  the  ‘ Henriade  ’ ; and  started 
that  vast  collection  of  anecdotes  which  formed  the  material  for 
the  ‘ Century  of  Louis  XIV.’ 

Arouet  stayed  several  months  in  the  chateau,  occasionally 
paying  a flying  visit  to  the  capital. ) The  end  of  the  Sun  King’s 
reign  was  fast  approaching.  The  famous  Bull  Unigenitus  was 
the  one  great  topic  of  all  men’s  conversation  ; and  no  doubt  was 
freely  discussed  at  Saint- Ange.  If  the  young  visitor  had  come 
there  meaning  to  be  author,  he  left  a hundred  times  more  fixed 
in  that  idea.  In  August  1715  Louis  XIV.  was  dying.  Arouet 
hastened  to  Paris  to  see  the  strange  things  that  death  would 
bring  about. 

In  his  pocket  he  had  a play,  1 (Edipe,’  on  which  he  had  now 
been  working  for  two  years. 

In  his  soul  were  the  courage,  the  conscious  power,  the  clear 
outlook  to  a future  all  unwarranted  by  the  present,  which  are  the 
consolations  of  genius. 

Arouet  was  beginning  the  world. 


iET.  20-21] 


15 


CHAPTER  II 

EPIGRAMS  AND  THE  BASTILLE 

At  the  death  of  Louis  XIV.  Paris  was  still  the  typical  Paris  of 
the  old  regime . Magnificence  and  squalor,  dirt  and  splendour, 
a few  men  living  like  gods  and  most  men  living  like  beasts  ; 
narrow  and  filthy  streets,  and  the  sumptuous  glory  of  the  Court 
of  the  Sun  King ; a hungry  canaille , and  a noblesse  whose 
exquisite  finish  of  manner  concealed  the  most  profound  corrup- 
tion of  morals  the  world  has  seen.  Such  was  the  Paris  of  1715. 

For  the  last  few  years  of  his  life  a woman  and  a priest  had 
absolutely  ruled  the  absolute  King.  France  forgave  Louis  his 
mistresses/  said  Arouet,  ‘ but  not  his  confessor.’  The  great  Bull 
Unigenitus,  that  thunderbolt  hurled  at  once  against  Jansenism 
and  liberty,  was  the  first  rock  on  which  the  French  monarchy 
struck.  Everybody  was  to  think  as  the  King  did  ! And  France, 
who  had  starved  patiently  to  pay  for  his  conquests  and  his 
pleasures,  received  with  open  joy  the  news  of  the  death  of  the 
man  who  had  tried  to  strangle  her  soul  with  Unigenitus.  { Paris 
was  flooded  with  satires  as  it  had  never  been  flooded  even  with 
panegyrics.  The  Court  shook  off  the  mantle  of  austerity  which 
it  had  of  late  been  wearing  over  its  depravity.  The  flagrant  vice 
of  the  Regency  flaunted  boldly  in  daylight,  and  jmen  laughed 
openly  at  a religion  in  which  for  years  they  had  concurred 
devoutly — with  the  tongue  in  the  cheek. 

The  world  wagged  thus  when  Arouet  came  up  from  Fon- 
tainebleau. The  great  majority  of  men  go  through  life  accepting 
what  they  find  in  it  without  question — supposing  that  because 
things  are,  they  will  be  and  ought  to  be.  But  this  boy  had  the 
order  of  mind  which  takes  nothing  for  granted.  A state  religion  ? 
Well,  what  had  it  done  for  that  state  and  for  the  souls  of  men  ? 
A paternal  government  that  left  its  children  to  starve  ? Arouet 
had  from  the  first  ‘ lisped  in  numbers,  for  the  numbers  came ; * 


16 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1715-17 


but  when  he  saw  on  the  one  hand  the  crowded  prisons  and 
brutalised  peasantry,  and  on  the  other  the  luxurious  debauchery 
of  the  Regent’s  Court,  the  numbers  began  for  the  first  time  to 
have  a careless  little  note  in  them  of  a most  piquant  satire. 

Louis  died  on  September  1,  1715.  Arouet  was  at  his  funeral 
— that  funeral  which  was  gayer  than  a fete . When  a burlesque 
invitation  to  the  obsequies  of  the  Bull  Unigenitus  appeared, 
there  were  not  wanting  fingers  to  point  at  the  notary’s  son  of 
one-and-twenty,  who  had  come  back  to  Paris  more  audacious  than 
ever,  and  had  immediately  resumed  his  connection  with  his  wild 
friends  of  the  Temple. 

file  read  aloud  his  ‘ (Edipe  ’ to  them  presently.  That,  and 
his  epigrams,  quickly  opened  to  him  half  the  salons  in  Paris. 
Then  Chaulieu — President  of  the  Temple — introduced  him  to  the 
magnificent  Duchesse  du  Maine,  ‘that  living  fragment  of  the 
Grand  Epoch,’  and  mistress  of  the  famous  ‘galeres  du  bel  esprit  ’ 
at  Sceaux.  Madame  must  have  him,  and  at  once,  in  her  salon. 
To  be  sure  the  boy  has  nothing  but  his  play  in  his  pocket  and  is 
of  no  birth  at  all ! But  what  a wit  and  daring  in  his  spirit ! 
What  a matchless  sarcasm  in  those  piercing  eyes  ! The  Duchess 
and  her  set  worshipped  cleverness  and  hated  the  Regent.  It  was 
the  only  religion  they  had.  What  could  they  do  but  fall  in  love 
with  this  ‘ little  Arouet  ’ who  could  hardly  have  been  dull  if  he 
had  tried ; and  was  much  more  than  suspected  of  the  authorship 
of  a too-telling  epigram  on  Philip  of  Orleans  and  his  infamous 
daughter,  du  Berri  ? 

‘ Little  Arouet  ’ read  aloud  ‘ (Edipe  ’ to  the  Duchess’s  court. 
He  was  at  ease  in  this  society  as  he  was  at  ease  in  all  societies. 

‘ Men  are  born  equal,  and  die  equal.’  ‘ It  is  only  externals  which 
distinguish  them.’  Those  were  the  sentiments  of  one  Arouet  de 
Voltaire.  He  must  have  known,  not  the  less,  that  here,  there 
was  no  one  who  was  his  equal.  But  he  sentimentalised  gaily  in 
the  moonlit  gardens  of  Sceaux — her  ‘ white  nights  ’ the  Duchess 
called  them — and  watched  senile  old  Chaulieu  making  love  to 
the  Duchess’s  companion,  Mademoiselle  de  Launay  ; wrote 
wicked  satirical  poems  to  please  his  hostess  ; and  was  so  clever 
and  daring  that  at  last  all  the  bold  brilliant  things  that  were 
whispered  in  Paris  were  fathered  on  the  presumptuous  youth,  the 
son  of  Saint-Simon’s  notary. 


^Et.  21—23]  EPIGRAMS  AND  THE  BASTILLE 


17 


In  the  spring  of  1716  he  stayed  with  Saint-Ange  again.  In 
May  he  was  back  in  the  capital.  He  did  say,  no  doubt,  when  the 
Regent  put  down  half  the  horses  in  the  royal  stables,  that  he 
would  have  done  better  to  have  dismissed  half  the  asses  who  had 
surrounded  the  late  King,  f Then  a shameful  epigram  on  the 
shameful  du  Berri  came  to  the  ears  of  the  persons  chiefly  con- 
cerned. Young  Arouet  was  exiled  to  Tulle — Tulle  being  changed 
pretty  easily,  at  his  father’s  request,  to  Sully.  No  reason  was 
assigned  by  the  Government  for  this  order  of  exile.  \ 

The  Duke  of  Sully  readily  became  a most  hospitable  host. 
The  Duchess  had  a most  charming  poor  companion,  Mademoiselle 
de  Livri.  It  was  but  an  exile  pour  rire , after  all — a warning 
fatherly  rap  from  that  paternal  Government  on  the  knuckles  of  an 
impertinent  child. 

It  is  strange  to  see  how  the  boy  chafed  under  that  agreeable 
courtly  life  of  hunting  and  conversation.  ‘It  would  be  delight- 
ful to  stay  at  Sully,’  he  wrote,  ‘ if  I were  only  allowed  to  go  away 
from  it.*  The  Duke  was  the  most  delightful  of  hosts,  and  his 
estate  most  charmingly  situated.  The  young  people  of  the 
chateau,  in  pairs,  sonneted  the  midsummer  moon  in  the  gardens  ; 
and  wrote  each  other  dainty  little  quatrains  and  flatteries. 
Arouet  loved  verses  and  the  society  of  charming  and  vivacious 
young  women  in  general,  and,  here,  of  one  charming  and 
vivacious  young  woman  in  particular ; f and  he  was  two-and- 
twent^/  j But  he  wrote  himself  back  to  Paris  by  poetic  compli^f 
ments  to  the  Regent  so  finely  turned  that  the  author  must  have 
had  some  unusual  spur  on  his  imagination.  He  was,  in  fact, 
beginning  to  wonder  if  there  was  not  a work  waiting  for  him  in 
the  world. 

If  it  was  not  his  fault,  it  was  the  fault  of  the  reputation  he 
had  made,  that  when  there  appeared  in  Paris,  immediately  he  re- 
turned to  it  in  the  spring  of  1717,  two  stinging  satires  on  the  state 
of  France  and  the  Regent’s  manner  of  life  called  respectively  ‘ J’ai 
Vu  ’ and  ‘ Puero  Regnante,’  they  should  at  once  be  assigned  to  him. 

‘ Puero  Regnante  ’ is  a dog-Latin  inscription. 

A boy  reigning  ; 

A poisoner 

Administering ; 

Councils  ignorant  and  unstable ; 


<1/ 

\> 


a 


lw^v 


18  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1717 

Religion  more  unstable ; 

An  exhausted  treasury ; 

Public  faith  violated ; 

Injustice  triumphant ; 

Sedition  imminent ; 

The  country  sacrificed 

To  the  hope  of  a Crown  ; 

The  inheritance  anticipated  ; 

France  perishing. 

The  ‘ J’ai  Vu  ’ is  a short  poem. 

I have  seen  . . . the  prisons  full ; 

I have  seen  . . . the  people  groaning ; 

I have  seen  . . . Port  Royal  demolished — 

‘ I have  seen,*  in  short,  everything  to  which  a prudent  person 
with  a proper  regard  to  his  safety  would  have  been  conveniently 
blind. 

Arouet  had  not  written  them.  But  that  did  not  matter.  He 
might  have  written  them.  They  were  after  his  manner.  Besides, 
had  he  not  been  in  exile  and  disgrace,  and  was  he  not  still  so 
wicked  that  his  good  old  father  would  not  have  him  to  the  house, 
and  he  was  living  an  outcast  in  furnished  lodgings  ? ) These 
reasonings  would  have  been  conclusive  alone.  Them7  he  was 
known  to  be  the  moving  spirit  at  Sceaux,  and  Sceaux  was  but 
another  name  for  disaffection. 

A spy,  Beauregard,  swore  to  a conversation  he  had  had  with 
Arouet,  in  which  Arouet,  with  a most  unnatural  imprudence, 
avowed  himself  the  author  of  both  satires  with  much  circum- 
stantial detail ; and  added  ‘ things  not  mentionable  * about  the 
Duchesse  du  Berri. 

He  went  his  way  quite  gaily  for  a while,  however.  His 
‘ (Edipe  ’ had  been  accepted,  and  was  actually  in  rehearsal  at  the 
theatre.  Here  was  a triumph  indeed.  He  was  still  beloved  of 
all  the  salons  and  the  women — dear,  delightful,  dangerous.  He 
had  the  keenest  sense  of  humour  to  help  him  through  these  little 
contretemps  of  existence.  He  would,  now  at  least,  hardly  have 
missed  his  mot  to  save  his  skin — and  he  held  that  dear,  as  the 
physically  weak  are  apt  to  do.  He  was  sauntering  one  day,  on 
May  15,  1717,  through  the  Palais  Royal  Gardens,  runs  the  story, 


0 


JEt.  23]  EPIGRAMS  AND  THE  BASTILLE 


19 


when  he  was  called  into  the  presence  of  the  Regent,  also 
sauntering  there. 

‘ I bet  you,  M.  Arouet,’  says  Philip,  ‘ I will  show  you  some- 
thing you  have  never  seen  before.’ 

4 What  is  that,  Monseigneur  ? ’ 

6 The  inside  of  the  Bastille.’ 

I take  it  as  seen,’  replies  Arouet  airily. 

(JHe  could,  all  things  considered,  have  been  very  little  surprised  : ~ ' 
when  on  May  16,  Whitsunday,  while  he  was  still  sleeping  calmly 
in  bed,  he  was  served  with  a lettre  de  cachet , his  room  and  person 
ignominiously  searched,  and  himself  removed  the  next  day  to  that 
historic  prison.  Perhaps  he  smiled  a little,  but  not  bitterly,  when 
they  discovered  on  him  Pimpette’s  poor  little  note.  ‘ I am  not 


made  for  the  passions,’  he  said  a year  or  two  later.  He  was  not. 
A great  work  and  a great  passion  seldom  run  together.  The  work 
must  be  the  only  passion  one  has. 

The  prison  was  not  very  painful,  it  appears.  Arouet  was 
allowed  an  excellent  room,  books,  a fire,  good  wine,  first-rate 
coffee,  the  use  of  the  bowling-green  and  the  billiard-room,  visitors, 
to  a reasonable  extent,  and  often  a seat  at  the  governor’s  dinner- 
table.  Some  of  the  King’s  guests  might  be  rotting  forgotten  for 
unknown  crimes  in  the  dungeons  beneath  ; but,  although  almost 
all  the  literary  men  of  the  period  were  bastilled  some  time  or 
other  in  their  lives,  they  unite  in  praising  the  prison  as  very 
reasonably  comfortable. 

The  present  prisoner  was  nothing  if  not  a philosopher.  Since 
I am  here,  I may  as  well  be  as  easy  as  I can ! The  captives  were 
allowed  to  make  purchases.  ( Arouet  entered  the  Bastille,  Monday/  '; 
May  17,  1717. ) On  the  foll<Wing  Thursday  he  signed  a receipt 
for  a couple  of  volumes  of  Homer,  two  Indian  handkerchiefs,  a 
little  cap,  two  cravats,  a nightcap,  and  a bottle  of  essence  of 
cloves.  He  had  everything  he  wanted,  in  fact,  save  two  things. 
For  the  first  few  weeks  of  his  imprisonment  it  seems  almost 
certain  that  he  was  not  allowed  pen  and  ink. 

But  if  he  could  not  write,  he  could  and  did  compose.  There 
was  that  poem.  Should  it  be  called  the  ‘League,’  the  ‘Henriade,’ 
or  ‘ Henry  of  Navarre,’  or  what  ? What’s  in  a name  after  all  ? 
He  had  a memory  so  marvellous  and  so  exact  that  he  could  not 
only  invent,  without  committing  to  paper,  whole  cantos  of  that 


20 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1717-18 


infant  epic,  but  remember  them.  The  subject  possessed  him. 
He  said  he  dreamt  in  his  sleep,  in  the  Bastille,  the  second  canto 
on  the  Massacre  of  Saint  Bartholomew  exactly  as  it  stands  to-day. 
It  is  not  unlikely.  Now  and  ever  when  he  was  writing,  what  he 
was  writing  was  to  him  food,  air,  warmth,  light,  life.  ‘ His  prison 
became  his  Parnassus,’  said  Frederick  the  Great  in  his  funeral 
oration  on  Voltaire.  Hundreds  of  projects  besides  that  epic,  to 
be  called  the  * Henriade  ’ finally,  coursed  through  that  brain, 
which  was  surely  the  most  active  ever  given  to  man.  From  his 
captivity  he  could  look  out  on  his  world.  What  was  there  not 
to  do  there  ? He  must  have  asked  himself  a thousand  times 
what  part  his  was  to  be  on  the  great  stage  of  human  existence. 

‘ I knew  how  to  reap  benefit  from  my  misfortune,’  he  wrote 
afterwards.  ‘ I learnt  how  to  harden  myself  against  sorrow,  and 
found  within  me  a strength  not  to  be  expected  from  the  lightness 
and  follies  of  my  youth.’ 

And  at  Court,  honest  memoir-writing  Saint-Simon  was 
apologising  for  mentioning  to  his  readers  so  insignificant  a fact 
as  that  one  Arouet,  ‘the  son  of  my  father’s  notary,’  was  im- 
prisoned for  some  audacious  verses ; while  at  home  that  good  old 
notary  announced  vindictively,  ‘ I told  you  so  ! I knew  his  idle- 
ness would  lead  to  disgrace.  Why  did  he  not  go  into  a pro- 
fession ? ’ 


Something  else  Arouet  did  in  the  Bastille  besides  dreaming 


epics.  He  changed  his  name.)  It  is  now  generally  thought  that 
he  called  himself  by  that  one  with  which  he  has  gone  among  the 
gods,  after  a family  who  were  his  mother’s  ancestors.  Before 
the  existence  of  this  family  was  discovered  some  supposed  that 
Voltaire  was  an  anagram  on  the  paternal  Arouet — Arouet,  L.  J. 
(le  jeune).  Others  believed  that,  remembering  not  untenderly 
from  a prison  those  who  had  called  him  ‘ le  petit  volontaire  * in 
his  childhood’s  home,  he  corrupted  and  abbreviated  it  into  the 
Voltaire  he  was  to  make  immortal.  As  to  the  reason  for  the 
change — ‘ I was  very  unlucky  under  my  first  name,’  he  wrote  ; 
‘ I want  to  see  if  this  one  will  succeed  any  better.*  Beyond  the 
wildest  dream  that  ever  Hope  dreamt,  ‘ this  one  * was  to  succeed 
indeed. 

The  real  author,  a certain  Le  Brun,  confessed  to  that  terrible 
‘ J’ai  Vu  , and  the  irrepressible  supposed  author,  who 


Mt.  23-24]  EPIGRAMS  AND  THE  BASTILLE 


21 


was  imprisoned  for  it,  sat  down  in  his  prison  and  wrote  a burlesque 
and  very  profane  poem  on  his  arrest,  which  had  taken  place,  it 
will  be  remembered,  on  Whitsunday. 

As  he  now  had  only  that  dog-Latin  epigram,  the  ‘ Puero 
Eegnante  ’ hanging  over  him/  Voltaire  was  released  from  the 
Bastille  on  April  11,  1718,  and  exiled  merely  to  his  father’s 
house  at  Chatenay. ) The  authorities  do  not  seem  to  have  thought 
it  necessary  to  apologise  for  their  little  mistake — a mistake  which 
kept  a brilliant  hoy  of  three-and- twenty  shut  up  in  a prison  for 
eleven  months  for  somebody  else’s  rhymes.  The  little  justice 
there  was  in  France  in  those  days  miscarried  so  frequently  that 
miscarriage  was  more  the  rule  than  the  exception.  The  ex- 
prisoner wrote  from  Chatenay  letters  to  the  authorities  begging 
to  be  allowed  to  return  to  Paris,  and  denying  that  1 abominable 
inscription,  the  “Puero,”  ’ pretty  vigorously.  Only  allow  me  to 
return  to  Paris,  if  but  for  a couple  of  hours,  and  throw  myself  at 
the  feet  of  the  Regent  and  explain  all ! I have  proof  now  of  the 
double-dealings  of  the  spies  who  betrayed  me!  ‘A  little  journey, 
situated  as  I am,  would  be  like  the  drop  of  water  to  the  wicked 
rich  man  in  the  parable  ! * He  was  permitted  to  make  that  little 
journey,  and  to  see  Regent  Philip. 

^Be  prudent/  said  Orleans,  ‘ and  I will  provide  for  you.’ 

r I shall  be  delighted  if  your  Highness  will  give  me  my  board/ 
replied  the  audacious  young  wit,  ‘ but  beg  that  you  will  take  no 
further  trouble  about  my  lodging.’? 

Some  authorities  place  this  story  at  a later  date  and  under 
different  circumstances.  If  the  present  be  its  true  place  and 
time,  the  mot  did  not  greatly  help  Arouet  to  regain  his  freedom, 
though  a mot  had  done  something  to  lose  it.  He  was  allowed  to  ‘ 

pay  flying  visits  to  the  capital,  but  it  was  not  "until  October  12, 

1718,  that  he  was  given  official  permission  to  return  to  Paris  and 
to  stay  there  as  long  as  he  liked. 

Either  now,  or  before  the  Bastille  adventure,  he  must  needs 
fall  in  love  with  that  pretty  Mademoiselle  de  Livri,  the  Duchess 
of  Sully’s  companion  and  relative,  who  would  fain  be  an  actress, 
with  a Voltaire  to  teach  her  elocution  and  tenderness.  The  pair 
rode  about  Paris  together  in  a bad  hackney  coach,  and  had  bad 
suppers  together — in  Elysium.  A friend  of  Voltaire’s,  de  G6non- 
ville,  fell  in  love  with  Mademoiselle  presently,  and  she  with 


M * 


22 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIEE 


[1718 


him — to  Voltaire’s  passing  displeasure.  He  vented  his  feeling  in 
a few  graceful  verses — and  it  vanished  into  air.  The  whole  thing 
was  but  an  episode  after  all,  a penchant  more  than  a passion,  the 
light  fancy  of  the  senses  that  touched  the  deeper  soul  not  at  all. 
But  posterity  should  be  grateful  to  Mademoiselle.  Voltaire  had 
his  portrait  painted  for  her  by  Largilliere,  and  may  be  seen 
to-day  as  he  looked  then — flowing  wig,  wide  mouth,  the  ruffled 
hand  thrust  lightly  in  the  waistcoat ; a lover,  young,  satisfied  with 
his  mistress,  himself,  and  all  the  world  ; and  in  the  eyes  and 
forehead,  latent  but  present,  power  and  will  extraordinary.  The 
mockery,  the  humour,  and  the  cynicism  which  make  later 
portraits  of  Voltaire  like  no  other  man’s,  are  not  in  this  one. 
His  relations  with  women — niece  or  mistress — always  show 
him  in  some  respects  in  his  best  light ; patient,  forbearing, 
and  faithful ; generous  to  the  memory  of  a false  woman,  giving 
honour  where  honour  was  due,  respecting  intelligence,  and  never 
weary  of  trying  to  turn  a fool  into  a sensible  companion. 

But  he  had  now  other  things  to  think  of  besides  the  senti- 
ments. He  had  made  his  debut , as  has  been  well  said,  in 
epigrams.  If  he  had  not  written  ‘J’ai  Vu,’  he  could  have 
written  it  a thousand  times  more  damning  and  deadly.  The 
most  beautiful  sting  that  ever  wasp  concealed  beneath  a gay 
coat,  he  was  keeping  for  his  enemies  yet.  He  was  still  the 
despair  of  M.  Arouet  and  the  spoilt  child  of  salons.  He 
had  a reputation  but  the  more  widespread  for  being  evil.  He 
was  rather  vain  and  inimitably  amusing.  He  was  so  clever 
— he  might  surely  do  anything  ! He  was,  in  fact,  that  most 
unsatisfactory  creature  in  the  world — a youth  of  promise. 

The  performance  was  to  come. 


Mt.  24] 


23 


CHAPTER  III 

‘(EDIPE,’  AND  THE  JOURNEY  TO  HOLLAND 

On  November  18,  1718,  there  was  produced  in  Paris  the  tragedy 
of  ‘ (Edipe,’  by  M.  Arouet  de  Voltaire. 

The  subject  of  the  play  is  classical  and  the  plot  entirely 
impossible.  Love  interest  there  is  none.  The  style  is  not  a 
little  bombastical  and  longwinded.  The  characters  are  always 
talking  about  what  they  are  going  to  do,  instead  of  doing  it. 
The  good  people  are  very,  very  good,  and  the  bad  ones  very, 
very  bad.  At  the  best  they  are  brilliant  automatons — masks, 
not  faces. 

The  play  has  indeed  the  perfect  smoothness  and  elegance 
dear  to  the  French  soul.  All  the  unities  are  nicely  observed, 
and  there  is  never  an  anachronism.  But  to  make  it  the 
astounding  success  it  was,  it  must  have  had  in  it  something 
better  even  than  the  brilliant  ingenuity  of  a Voltaire — something 
better  even  than  a Voltaire’s  perfect  knowledge  of  the  human 
nature  for  which  he  was  writing.  It  contained  the  first  trumpet 
call  of  the  Voltairian  message. 

The  house  was  crowded.  It  was  the  custom  of  the  day 
for  the  playwright  to  beat  up  his  friends  and  engage  them  to 
applaud  the  first  steps  of  the  child  of  his  brain.  But  here 
also  were  enemies  and  neutrals — all  Paris  agog  to  see  the  next 
move  in  the  game  of  a daring  player.  Among  the  audience, 
half  grumbling,  half  delighted,  was  old  Maitre  Arouet.  6 The 
rascal ! the  rascal ! ’ he  muttered,  as  some  bold  touch  brought 
down  the  house.  Brother  Armand  should  have  been  there  too, 
to  have  heard  the  strangely  passionate  enthusiasm  with  which 
was  received  the  couplet  which,  after  all,  merely  referred  to  the 
pagan  priesthood  of  a long  dead  age : 

Our  priests  are  not  what  a foolish  people  think  them  ! 

Our  credulity  makes  all  their  knowledge. 


9A 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1718-19 


But  ‘ when  fanaticism  has  once  gangrened  a brain,  the  malady  is 
incurable/  said  Voltaire;  and  neither  he  nor  any  other  could 
alter  an  Armand.  A certain  Marechale  de  Villars — galante , 
coquette,  with  all  the  easy  ton  learnt  in  Courts,  and  all  the 
French  woman’s  aplomb  and  grace  to  make  five-and-thirty 
more  dangerous  than  five-and-twenty — leant  curiously  out  of 
her  box  presently  to  watch  a young  buffoon  of  an  actor  who  was 
doing  his  best  to  ruin  M.  de  Voltaire’s  play.  The  high  priest, 
in  a scene  essentially  grave  and  tragic,  had  as  trainbearer  a lean- 
faced, narrow-shouldered,  boyish-looking  youth  who  must  needs 
take  his  part  as  comic,  and  make  a fool  not  of  himself  only 
but  of  his  high  priest  also.  Who  is  the  ridiculous  bay  ? M.  de 
Voltaire.  It  appears  deliciously  piquant  to  the  Marechale  that 
an  author  should  run  the  risk  of  damning  his  own  work  for 
a jest.  What  a refreshing  person  to  have  to  stay  when  one  is 
a little  bored ! Madam  receives  him  in  her  box — he  knows  quite 
well  how  to  behave  and  how  to  be  as  affable,  daring,  and  amusing 
as  could  be  wished — and  they  begin  a friendship,  not  without 
result. 

There  were  some  allusions  to  the  Regent  and  Madame  du 
Berri  in  ‘ (Edipe,’  very  vociferously  applauded,  which  must  have 
made  Maitre  Arouet  groan  in  spirit  and  think  that  after  all 
his  Armand,  his  rigid  ‘ fool  in  prose  ’ at  home,  was  safer  to  deal 
with  than  this  ‘ fool  in  verse  ’ on  the  boards,  who  would  not 
be  warned  and  must  come  to  the  gallows.  But  the  Regent,  like 
a wise  man,  hearing  of  that  astounding  first  night  and  the 
allusions,  presented  the  author  with  a gold  medal  and  a thousand 
crowns ; talked  with  him  publicly  at  the  next  Opera  ball,  and 
made  a point  of  coming  to  the  performance  to  show  that  the 
arrows  could  not  have  been  really  intended  for  him  after  all. 

As  for  the  Duchesse  du  Berri,  she  came  five  nights  in  suc- 
cession to  the  piece.  And  of  course  all  the  little,  witty,  disaffected 
Court  of  Maine  were  there  too,  enjoying  those  allusions  and  looking 
hard  at  their  enemies,  the  Regent  and  his  daughter. 

The  curtain  went  down  on  perhaps  the  most  successful  ddbut 
that  ever  playwright  had  made.  ‘ (Edipe  ’ ran  for  forty-five  nights. 
Clever  Philip  commanded  it  to  Court  to  be  performed  before  the 
little  Louis  XV.  The  enterprising  and  energetic  young  author 
asked,  and  obtained,  permission  to  dedicate  it,  in  book  form,  to 


JEt.  24-25] 


* (EDIPE  ’ 


25 


downright  old  Charlotte  Elizabeth,  the  Regent’s  mother.  He 
sent  a copy,  with  a flaming  sonnet,  to  George  I.  of  England  ; 
and  yet  another  copy  to  the  Regent’s  sister,  the  Duchess  of 
Lorraine,  with  a letter  wherein  is  to  be  found  his  first  signature 
of  his  new  name,  Arouet  de  Voltaire.  When  the  Prince  de  Conti, 
his  old  Temple  companion,  complimented  ‘ (Edipe  * and  its  author 
in  a poem  of  his  own,  * Sir,’  said  Voltaire  airily,  ‘ you  will  be 
a great  poet ; I must  get  the  King  to  give  you  a pension.’ 

The  young  playwright  gained  from  ‘ (Edipe  ’ — not  including 
the  Regent’s  present — about  four  thousand  francs,  besides  a fine 
capital  of  fame.  He  was  the  old  notary’s  son  to  some  purpose 
after  all,  and  began  to  invest  money.  As  to  the  fame,  he  took 
that  very  modestly.  When  the  women  declared  his  ‘ (Edipe  ’ to 
be  a thousand  times  better  than  his  old  hero  Corneille’s  play  on 
the  same  subject,  the  young  man  made  the  happiest  quotation 
from  Corneille  himself,  disclaiming  superiority. 

He  attended  every  one  of  the  forty-five  performances — a learner 
of  his  own  art  and  of  the  actors’. 

He  must  have  gone  back  gay  and  well  pleased  enough  on  those 
evenings  to  his  furnished  room  in  the  Rue  de  Calandre. 

In  the  spring  of  1719  the  faithless  and  charming  Mademoiselle 
de  Livri  insisted  on  his  using  his  influence  to  get  her  a good  part 
in  his  play.  Perhaps  she,  Voltaire,  and  ‘little  de  Genonville’ 
enjoyed  themselves  about  Paris  together  as  before.  ‘ Que  nous 
nous  aimions  tous  trois ! . . . que  nous  etions  heureux  ! ’ the 
forsaken  lover  wrote  ten  years  later  in  his  graceful  poem  to 
the  memory  of  de  Genonville. 

Mademoiselle  was  no  actress,  though  she  wished  to  be  one. 
Her  very  accent  was  provincial.  She  was  laughed  off  the  stage 
when  ‘ (Edipe  ’ was  revived  after  Lent,  and  Voltaire  very  nearly 
came  to  blows  with  one  of  the  laughers,  Poisson,  who  was  one  of 
the  actors  too.  He  had  Poisson  thrown  into  prison,  and  then 
himself  obtained  his  release.  Poisson  and  the  public  were  right 
after  all,  and  Voltaire  soon  knew  it. 

Mademoiselle  retired  from  the  boards,  and  married. 

When  a few  years  later,  Voltaire  went  to  call  on  her  in  her 
fine  house  when  she  was  the  Marquise  de  Gouvernet,  and  her  huge 
Swiss  porter,  not  knowing  him,  refused  him  admission,  he  sent 
her  ‘ Les  Vous  et  Les  Tu,’  one  of  the  most  charmingly  graceful 


26 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1719-20 


and  bantering  of  all  his  poems.  In  his  old  age  at  Ferney,  when 
the  first  rose  of  the  year  appeared  he  would  pluck  it  and  kiss  it 
to  the  memory  of  Mademoiselle  de  Livri.  Perhaps  it  was  of  her 
he  thought  when  he  wrote  one  of  the  few  tender  lines  to  be  found 
in  his  works,  and  one  of  the  tenderest  in  any  poetry : 

C’est  moi  qui  te  dois  tout,  puisque  c’est  moi  qui  t’aime. 

On  his  last  great  visit  to  Paris,  when  he  was  nearly  eighty- 
four  and  she  not  much  younger,  the  two  met  for  the  last  time — 
ghosts  out  of  shadowland — in  a strange  new  world. 

In  this  same  spring  of  1719  there  appeared  in  Paris  another 
satire  on  the  Regent,  called  the  4 Philippics.’  M.  de  Voltaire 
had  not  written  it,  to  be  sure.  But  it  was  clever,  and  sounded 
as  if  he  had.  Besides,  he  was  known  to  be  the  friend  of  the 
Duchesse  du  Maine,  at  the  present  moment  shut  up,  with  her 
Court,  in  the  Bastille  ; of  the  gorgeous  Duke  of  Richelieu  and  of 
the  Spanish  ambassador  who  were  accomplices  in  a conspiracy 
against  Orleans.  So  in  May  the  authorities  requested  M.  de 
Voltaire  to  spend  the  summer  in  the  country  ; and  he  spent  it 
at  Villars. 

If  the  Marechale  had  been  charming  in  Paris,  she  was  a 
thousand  times  more  so  here.  If  she  had  flattered  a brilliant 
young  author  in  her  box  at  the  theatre,  she  flattered  and  petted 
him  a thousand  times  better  now  she  had  him  to  herself,  an 
interesting  young  exile.  Such  a clever  boy  ! so  witty  ! so  cynical ! 
so  amusing  ! He  certainly  ought  to  have  been  clever  enough  to 
guess  that  this  woman  of  the  world  was  only  playing  with  him. 
But  he  was  vain  too — and  did  not  guess  it.  ‘Friendship  is 
a thousand  times  better  worth  having  than  love,’  he  wrote  dis- 
consolately in  a letter  after  a while.  ‘There  is  something  in 
me  which  makes  it  ridiculous  for  me  to  love.  ...  It  is  all  over. 
I renounce  it  for  life.’  The  renunciation  was  not  so  easy  as  he 
expected.  He  was,  at  least  for  a time,  out  of  gear,  restless, 
discontented.  The  husband,  Louis  XIV.’s  famous  marshal,  had 
a thousand  anecdotes  of  the  Sun  King  to  relate.  And  the  future 
author  of  the  ‘ Century  of  Louis  XIV.’  was  almost  too  distrait  to 
listen  to  them.  He  forgot  Paris  and  his  career.  He  forgot  the 
dazzling  success  of  ‘ (Edipe.’  He  would  not  indeed  have  been 
Voltaire,  but  some  lesser  man,  if  he  had  let  this  or  any  other 


Mu.  25—26] 


1 (EDIPE 


27 


passion  ride  over  him  rough- shod.  He  had  the  4 Henriade  ’ and 
a new  play  with  him.  He  turned  to  his  work — worked  like 
a fury — until  he  had  worked  the  folly  out  of  him.  But,  not  the 
less,  4 he  never  spoke  of  it  afterwards  but  with  a feeling  of  regret, 
almost  of  remorse.’ 

By  June  25,  1719,  he  was  at  Sully,  where  he  wrote  most  of 
his  new  play,  4 Artemire,’  and  spent  the  autumn  and  part  of  the 
winter.  Paris  had  gone  mad  over  the  financial  schemes  of  John 
Law,  and  it  was  well  that  a young  man  of  five-and -twenty,  with 
a taste  for  speculation  and  money  in  his  pocket  for  the  first  time, 
should  be  out  of  the  way  of  temptation.  From  Sully  he  went 
back  to  Villars,  and  from  Villars  to  the  Duke  of  Richelieu’s. 
4 1 go  from  chateau  to  chateau,’  he  wrote.  He  liked  the  life  well, 
no  doubt.  It  was  gay,  easy,  witty.  For  anyone  else  it  would 
have  been  idle  too  ; but  not  for  a Voltaire. 

He  had  already  complained  that  his  passion  for  his  Marechale 
de  Villars  had  lost  him  a good  deal  of  his  time.  But,  all  the 
same,  by  February  1720  4 Artemire  ’ was  finished,  and  its  author 
was  back  in  Paris  superintending  its  rehearsals. 

Its  first  appearance  took  place  on  February  13,  1720.  It  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  it  was  a most  dismal  failure. 

Adrienne  Lecouvreur,  the  great  tragic  actress,  had  hoped  every- 
thing from  it.  At  a private  reading  a certain  Abbe  de  Bussi  had 
shed  so  many  tears  at  its  pathos  that  he  had  caught  cold  from 

them.  The  public  was  not  so  softhearted.  It  was  in  no  mood 
for  plays.  Law  had  just  ruined  half  Paris.  When  the  crash 
came — 4 Paper,’  said  Voltaire,  with  his  usual  neat  incisiveness,  4 is 
now  reduced  to  its  intrinsic  value.’  Someone  says  that  this  mot 
was  the  funeral  oration  of  Law’s  system.  Law’s  system  was  the 
funeral  oration  of  4 Artemire.’  It  was  a dull  feeble  play.  Not 
all  its  author’s  rewritings  and  correctings  and  embellishments — 
and  it  was  his  custom  to  rewrite,  correct,  and  embellish  all  his 
works  until  labour  and  genius  could  do  no  more  for  them — could 
ever  make  it  good  enough  for  him  to  publish  as  a whole.  But 
when  the  public  took  it  exactly  at  his  own  valuation,  he  was 
not  a little  hurt.  It  was  a later  Voltaire  who  said  that  he  envied 
the  beasts  because  of  their  ignorance  of  evil  to  come  and  of 
what  people  said  of  them . He  was  not  less  sensitive  now  than 

then.  The  last  performance  of  the  rewritten  4 Artemire  ’ took 


28 


THE  LIFE  OP  VOLTAIEE 


[1720—22 


place  on  March  8,  1720.  When,  soon  after,  the  ‘ Henriade  ’ was 
criticised  at  a private  reading,  he  threw  it  disgustedly  into  the 
fire ; and  President  Henault  saved  it  at  the  price  of  a pair 
of  lace  ruffles.  Perhaps  the  fire  was  not  very  bright,  or  the 
author  had  a very  shrewd  idea  that  one  of  his  friends  would  not 
let  a masterpiece  be  lost  to  posterity. 

He  went  to  stay  again  with  Richelieu  after  his  ‘ Artemire  ’ 
disappointment ; and  from  there  wrote  to  Theriot  telling  him  to 
copy  out,  in  his  very  best  handwriting,  cantos  of  the  ‘ Henriade  ’ 
which  were  to  be  propitiatingly  presented  to  the  Regent.  From 
Richelieu  Voltaire  went  to  Sully,  and  from  Sully  to  La  Source, 
the  home  of  the  great  St.  John,  Lord  Bolingbroke,  and  his 
French  wife. 

In  the  June  of  1721  he  went  back  to  Villars  again.  He  could 
trust  himself  to  see  his  Marechale  now.  They  had  ‘ white  nights  1 
here  as  at  Sceaux  and  at  Sully.  They  gaily  astronomised  through 
opera  glasses  in  the  long,  warm,  starlit  summer  nights  in  the 
garden — with  the  assistance  of  that  fashionable  ‘ Plurality  of 
Worlds  ’ by  M.  de  Fontenelle.  ‘ We  mistake  Venus  for  Mercury/ 
Voltaire  wrote  to  him  gaily  in  verse,  ‘ And  break  up  the  order  of 
the  Heavens.’ 

From  that  modish  courtly  life  the  man  who  had  been  Francis 
Marie  Arouet  was  summoned  home  in  the  December  of  1721  to 
the  deathbed  of  his  old  father.  A strange  group  gathered  round 
it — Catherine,  Madame  Mignot,  a middle-aged  married  woman ; 
Armand,  the  austere  and  surly  Jansenist  of  eight-and-thirty  ; and 
the  most  brilliant  man  in  France.  Good  old  Maitre  Arouet  went 
the  way  of  all  flesh,  trusting  greatly  neither  in  his  ‘ fool  in  prose  * 
nor  his  ‘ fool  in  verse/  but  leaving  Prose  a post  in  the  Chamber 
of  Accounts  which  brought  in  thirteen  thousand  francs  yearly,  and 
Verse  a sum  which  afforded  him  four  thousand  odd  francs  per 
annum.  He  had  appointed  a trustee  and  guardian,  with  whom 
Verse,  who  was  always  what  his  valets  hereafter  charitably  called 
‘ vif/  immediately  quarrelled. 

The  guardian  was  indeed  such  a dilatory  old  person  that  it 
took  him  four  years  to  divide  the  estate  among  Maitre  Arouet’s 
children  ; and  two  years  after  his  father’s  death  Voltaire  was 
writing  lugubriously  to  Theriot,  ‘ I shall  be  obliged  to  work  to 
live,  after  having  lived  to  work.’ 


Mt.  26—28 


1 (ED1PE  ’ 


29 


Things  were  not  quite  so  bad  as  that,  however.  When  he  left 
the  Bastille  the  Regent  had  given  him  a pension  of  twelve 
hundred  francs.  And  now,  a few  days  after  his  father’s  death, 
in  January  1722,  the  boy  King,  Louis  XV.,  made  him  a further 
pension  of  two  thousand  francs.  From  this  moment  Voltaire 
never  spent  his  whole  income. 

In  no  other  concern  of  his  life  has  he  been  so  much  misrepre- 
sented as  in  his  dealings  with  money  matters. 

It  is  hard  to  see  why  for  all  other  men  independence  should 
be  considered  honourable  and  a freedom  of  the  spirit,  and  grind- 
ing poverty  an  inspiration  and  liberty  only  to  the  man  of  letters. 
But  the  peculiarly  foolish  idea  that  genius  cannot  be  genius  if  it 
understands  its  bank-book,  and  that  great  truths  can  only  come 
from  a garret  and  an  ill-fed  brain,  is  not  yet  extinct.  Many  of 
Voltaire’s  biographers  feel  that  they  have  to  apologise  for  him 
paying  his  bills  regularly,  hunting  out  his  creditors,  and  investing 
his  money  with  shrewdness  and  caution.  It  would  have  been  so 
much  more  romantic  to  have  flung  it  about  royally — and  then 
borrowed  someone  else’s  ! 

But  Voltaire  knew  that  4 poverty  enervates  the  courage.’  He 
never  uttered  a truer  word.  If  it  was  his  mission  to  whip  the 
world’s  apathy  into  action  with  unpalatable  truths,  he  could  not 
depend  on  that  world  for  the  bread  he  put  into  his  mouth  and  the 
coat  he  put  on  his  back.  4 Ask  nothing  of  anyone ; need  no  one.’ 
4 My  vocation  is  to  say  what  I think,  fari  qua  sentiam .’  If 
Voltaire  had  been  insolvent  the  Voltairian  message  could  never 
have  been  uttered. 

In  this  May  of  1722  he  further  sought  to  improve  his  mone- 
tary position  by  running  to  9arth,  for  Cardinal  Dubois — the  first, 
greatest,  and  vilest  of  the  Regent’s  Prime  Ministers — a spy,  one 
Salamon  Levi.  Voltaire  does  not  appear  to  have  thought  the 
occupation  a derogatory  one.  Nor  did  it  hurt  his  cynic  and 
elastic  conscience  to  flatter  4 Iscariot  ’ Dubois  to  the  top  of  his 
bent  both  in  verse  and  prose,  and  declare  that  he  (Voltaire)  would 
be  eternally  grateful  if  Dubois  would  employ  him  somehow,  in 
something. 

The  pension  from  the  King — very  irregularly  paid  at  first,  and 
soon  not  paid  at  all — was  not  taken  by  him  as  the  authorities 
must  have  hoped  it  would  be,  and  neither  shut  his  mouth  nor 


30 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1722 


quenched  his  spirit.  It  was  nominally  a tribute  to  a talented 
young  playwriter.  He  took  it  virtually  as  such.  His  old  talent 
for  getting  into  mischief  was  as  lively  as  ever  ; and  spies  at  this 
period  seem  to  have  had  an  unlucky  fascination  for  him.  One  night 
in  July  1722  at  the  house  of  the  Minister  of  War  he  met  Beau- 
regard, the  spy  who  had  been  the  instrument  of  putting  him  into 
the  Bastille.  ‘ I knew  spies  were  paid/  he  said,  1 but  I did  not 
know  that  it  was  by  eating  at  the  minister’s  table.’  Beauregard 
bided  his  time,  and  fell  on  the  poet  one  night  on  the  Bridge 
of  Sevres  as  he  was  crossing  it  in  his  sedan  chair,  beating  him 
severely.  To  give  blows  with  a cane  was  hereafter  translated 
‘ Voltairiser  ’ in  the  mouth  of  Voltaire’s  enemies.  He  had  many 
of  them.  He  had  made  so  many  mots  ! They  denied  him  his 
proper  share  of  physical  courage.  D’Argenson,  his  friend,  though 
he  said  he  had  in  his  soul  a strength  worthy  of  Turenne,  of  Moses, 
and  of  Gustavus  Adolphus,  yet  added  that  he  feared  the  least 
dangers  for  his  body  and  was  ‘a  proven  coward.’  He  was 
certainly,  now  and  ever,  a most  nervously  organised  creature. 
When  he  was  at  fever  heat  he  could  be  plucky  enough.  But 
there  is  as  little  doubt  that  he  dearly  loved  his  safety  as  that  he 
spent  his  whole  life  in  endangering  it. 

He  pursued  Beauregard  with  a most  nimble,  passionate,  vivid 
intensity.  He  must  have  had  an  extraordinary  persistence  to  get 
that  unwieldy  mass  of  muddle  and  jobbery  which  called  itself 
French  law  to  administer  any  kind  of  justice  ; but  he  did  it.  It 
took  him  more  than  fifteen  months  to  compass  his  revenge,  and 
cost  him  immense  sums  of  money  as  well  as  immense  labour. 
The  game  was  not  worth  the  candle.  But  Voltaire  was  never  the 
person  to  think  of  that.  To  him  the  game  was  everything  while 
he  pursued  it.  It  was  to  this  characteristic  he  owed  some  of  his 
success  in  life. 

The  affair  of  the  Bridge  of  Sevres  was,  not  the  less,  one  of 
the  most  unfortunate  incidents  of  his  experience.  To  the  day  of 
his  death  it  was  a whip  in  the  hands  of  his  enemies  which  they 
used  without  mercy  and  without  ceasing. 

He  must  have  been  tired  of  fighting  and  failure,  and  in  need 
of  quiet  and  change  when  one  of  his  philosophic  marquises — a 
certain  Madame  de  Rupelmonde — ‘ young,  rich,  agreeable/  took 
him  with  her  in  July  1722,  as  her  guest,  a trip  to  Holland.  Her 


JEt.  28] 


THE  JOURNEY  TO  HOLLAND 


31 


witty  companion  of  eight-and- twenty  was  in  no  sense  her  lover. 
The  few  convenances  there  were  left  in  those  days  quite  permitted 
such  an  association.  The  two  had  for  each  other  merely  a gallant 
friendship.  Madame  was  a widow,  of  easy  virtue,  and  fashionable 
enough  to  have  religious  doubts — to  wish  to  be  taught  to  think. 
As  they  jolted  leisurely  in  her  post-chaise  over  the  rough  roads 
of  old  France  they  had  plenty  of  time  to  discuss  fate,  free  will, 
life,  death,  and  the  theologies.  Voltaire  found  time,  too,  during 
the  trip,  to  answer  Madame7s  questions  by  an  ‘ Epistle  to  Uranie  * 
— in  which  he  gave,  in  a few  graceful  pages,  and  with  the 
admirable  terseness  and  lucidity  which  were  to  be  the  hall-mark 
of  all  his  writings,  the  most  powerful  objections  to  Christianity. 
It  was  his  first  open  avowal  of  Deism.  How  long  he  had  cherished 
that  belief  and  outgrown  all  others,  cannot  be  told.  The  whole 
temper  of  his  mind  was  rationalistic.  Christianity  had  come  to 
him  through  the  muddy  channel  of  French  Roman  Catholicism 
in  the  eighteenth  century.  He  began  by  disbelieving  the  shame- 
less superstitions  with  which  the  Churchmen  darkened  and 
debased  the  understanding  of  the  people.  He  ended  by  dis- 
believing everything  which  his  reason  could  not  follow.  The 
process  is  easy  and  not  uncommon. 

The  philosophic  pair  were  much  feted  en  route.  ‘ (Edipe  7 
was  performed  when  they  were  at  Cambrai,  as  a delicate  compli- 
ment. There  was  a Congress  going  on  there  too ; and  Voltaire 
wrote  gaily  therefrom  to  Cardinal  Dubois  (who  was  archbishop 
of  the  place  but  had  never  even  seen  it)  one  of  those  audacious, 
easy  letters  which  were  his  forte , and  which  Dubois  and  Theriot 
between  them  passed  round  the  salons  of  Paris.  Voltaire  and 
Madame  were  at  Cambrai  for  some  five  or  six  weeks,  and  then 
went  on  to  Brussels.  Here  lived  now  J.  B.  Rousseau,  fifty-two 
years  old,  who  from  wit  and  licence  had  passed  to  dulness  and 
orthodoxy.  Of  course  the  poets  met.  Voltaire  had  not  seen 
Rousseau  since  he  was  a schoolboy,  and  Rousseau  had  been 
shown  him  as  a prodigy  for  imitation.  To  the  gay,  unsparing 
logic  of  the  younger  poet  the  old  one  did  not  appear  at  all  in 
the  light  of  a prodigy  now.  ‘ He  despises  me  because  I neglect 
rhyme,  and  I despise  him  because  he  can  do  nothing  but  rhyme,7 
said  Voltaire  carelessly. 

At  first,  however,  all  went  well.  Voltaire  read  his  ‘ master  7 


32 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1722-23 


as  he  called  him,  a part  of  the  1 Henriade.*  Rousseau  praised  it, 
only  criticising  such  passages  as  would  be  likely  to  give  offence 
to  the  Church.  Then  came  a meeting,  when  the  poets  read  to 
each  other  some  of  their  minor  poems  ; and  Madame  de  Rupel- 
monde  was  a gracious  and  sympathetic  listener.  Rousseau  read 
his  satire,  the  ‘Judgment  of  Pluto  * ; which  was  nothing  but  an 
account  of  the  wrongs  which  had  exiled  him.  And  Voltaire  said 
the  ‘ Judgment  ’ was  unworthy  of  the  Great  and  Good  Rousseau. 
Then  Rousseau  must  needs  read  out  his  ‘ Ode  to  Posterity,’  on 
the  same  subject.  ‘ That  is  a letter,  master,’  says  Voltaire,  ‘ which 
will  never  reach  its  address.’  Then  Voltaire  takes  his  ‘ Epistle  to 
Uranie  ’ and  reads  that . ‘ Stop,  stop  ! ’ cries  old  Rousseau,  still 

smarting  under  the  audacious  boy’s  criticisms.  ‘ What  horrible 
profanity ! ’ And  Voltaire  asks  since  when  the  author  of  the 
‘ Moisade  ’ has  become  devout. 

There  was  the  making  of  a very  pretty  quarrel  here.  The 
one  sun  was  rising,  the  other  setting.  Both  men  were  not  a little 
vain,  sensitive,  and  jealous.  Henceforth,  it  was  war  to  the  knife. 
They  parted  ; and  if  Voltaire  forgave  at  the  last,  Rousseau  never 
did. 

Rousseau  recorded  afterwards  how  Voltaire  attended  Mass 
on  the  first  day  of  his  arrival  at  Brussels  and  shocked  the  con- 
gregation by  his  profanity.  The  story  was  true,  though  it  was 
written  by  an  enemy.  Voltaire  was  born  irreverent.  When 
he  left  Brussels  he  did  not  even  revere  that  hero  of  his  youth, 
Rousseau. 

By  October  1722  he  and  Madame  had  gone  on  to  The  Hague 
and  Amsterdam. 

The  young  man  was  always  out  dining  and  playing  tennis 
there,  reading  aloud  his  works,  keen,  active,  enjoying  himself. 
His  health,  of  which  he  was  exceedingly  fond  of  talking  and 
complaining,  was  better  than  it  had  ever  been  ; but  that  did  not 
prevent  him  from  drinking  up  one  day  as  a kind  of  medical 
experiment — ‘ from  greediness,’  said  Madame  de  Rupelmonde — 
a bottle  of  medicine  from  her  bedside  which  she  was  going  to 
have  taken,  from  necessity. 

Perhaps  in  the  midst  of  gaiety  and  enjoyment  Voltaire  recalled 
the  last  time  he  was  here,  Pimpette,  and  that  wild  episode  of 
his  youth.  But  this  was  the  man  who  was  always  agog  for  the 


J.  B.  ROUSSEAU. 

From  an  Engraving  after  a Picture  by  J.  Aved , 


M t.  28—29]  THE  JOURNEY  TO  HOLLAND 


33 


future  ; never  a dreamer  of  the  past — a doer,  an  actor,  the  most 
energetic  spirit  in  history. 

When  he  was  at  The  Hague  he  was  busy  arranging  for  the 
publication  of  his  ‘ Henriade  ’ there,  in  that  freer  country,  and 
continually  reading  and  reciting  extracts  from  it  to  his  friends. 
After  a few  weeks’  visit  he  started  on  his  journey  home.  Madame 
de  Rupelmonde  had  a house  at  The  Hague,  and  as  there  was  no 
other  agreeable  marquise  with  a travelling  carriage  returning  to 
France  just  then,  M.  de  Voltaire  did  the  journey  on  horseback 
alone,  and  as  economically  as  he  could. 

He  was  at  Cambrai  again  on  October  81,  1722,  announcing 
the  forthcoming  publication  of  his  epic.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
new  year,  1723,  he  was  once  more  staying  at  La  Source,  near 
Orleans,  with  that  exiled  Lord  Bolingbroke  who  had,  said  his 
guest,  ‘ all  the  learning  of  his  own  country  and  all  the  politeness 
of  ours.’  The  guest  read  aloud  that  dear  epic.  He  called  it 
‘ The  League  or  Henry  IV.’  now,  or  ‘ The  League,’  or  * Henry  IV.’ 
only.  He  advertised  it  industriously  at  every  chateau  he  stayed 
at.  In  Paris  Theriot  was  trying  to  get  subscriptions  for  it,  and 
to  propitiate  the  censor.  From  La  Source  Voltaire  went  to  stay 
with  other  friends  at  Uss6,  who  were  also  friends  of  a charming 
early  friend  of  his  own,  Madame  de  Mimeure. 

By  February  23,  1723,  he  was  back  again  in  Paris  seeing  a 
new  play  by  Alexis  Piron,  called  ‘ Harlequin  Deucalion,’  wherein 
the  failure  of  ‘ Artemire  * was  piquantly  satirised.  ‘ Deucalion  ’ is 
remarkable  as  having  obeyed  a prohibition  of  the  censor,  designed 
to  stop  comic  opera  in  Paris,  that  not  more  than  one  person 
should  appear  on  the  stage  at  a time,  and  as  having  succeeded  in 
spite  of  that  obedience. 

Then  the  active  Voltaire  was  off  to  Rouen,  where  lived  his  old 
friend  Cideville.  Then  he  went  on  to  Riviere  Bourdet,  near 
Rouen,  the  country  home  of  the  Bernieres,  a married  couple,  also 
very  much  his  friends.  All  the  time  he  was  planning,  scheming, 
working,  for  the  production  of  his  ‘Henriade.’  Almost  all  his 
letters  of  the  year  1723  are  to  Theriot  or  Madame  de  Bernieres, 
and  almost  all  on  this  topic.  In  May  he  was  staying  at  the 
Bernieres’  town  house,  on  what  is  now  the  Quai  Voltaire  and 
was  then  the  Quai  des  Theatins,  opposite  the  gardens  of  the 
Tuileries.  The  ‘ Henriade  ’ was  finished  at  last.  The  subscription 

D 


34 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1723 


lists  had  not  gone  well ; their  ill-success  had  been  burlesqued  in 
the  play  which  succeeded  ‘ Deucalion.’  That  was  mortifying. 
Still,  it  was  but  the  chagrin  of  a moment.  The  ‘ Henriade  * was 
about  to  appear.  It  must  and  should  succeed  ! Had  not  its 
wary  author  read  parts  to  the  Regent,  and  changed  phrases  which 
might  have  offended  Dubois  ? The  only  thing  he  would  not  do 
was  to  alter  its  principles  to  suit  the  blindest  and  most  autocratic 
powers  that  ever  brought  a country  to  ruin. 

It  must  take  its  chance ! It  took  it,  and  was  prohibited  by 
the  censor  immediately. 


jEt.  29] 


35 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  ‘HENRIADE,’  AND  A VISIT  TO  COURT 

Considered  as  a poem,  the  ‘ Henriade  * is  the  kind  of  fighting 
epic  which  is  the  delight  of  schoolboys  and  a little  apt  to  bore 
their  elders. 

The  subject  is  the  life  of  Henry  of  Navarre  ; the  chief  event, 
the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew.  Truth,  Discord,  and  other 
abstract  virtues  are  embodied,  and  talk  at  some  length.  The 
poem  is  modelled  on,  if  not  imitated  from,  Horace  and  Virgil. 
Regarded  on  the  surface  it  is  nothing  but  a dramatic  story,  easy, 
swinging,  smooth,  and  with  the  lilt  and  rhythm  such  a story 
requires. 

But  beneath  that  surface,  not  seen  but  felt,  beneath  the  easy  * 
couplets  and  running  rhymes,  there  beats  a spirit  alert  for  liberty — 
the  wings  of  the  wild  bird  against  the  cage  which  keeps  it  from 
life,  sunshine,  and  freedom.  The  pivot  on  which  the  poem  turns 
is  that  supreme  intolerance,  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew. 

Its  atmosphere  throughout  is  that  of  hatred  of  priestly  power, 
fanaticism,  superstition  ; the  love  of  peace,  justice,  enlightenment. 

Its  religion  is  Deism.  And  its  dedication  to  Louis  XV.  contains 
these  astounding  words  : 1 You  are  king  only  because  Henry  IV. 
was  a great  man  ; and  France,  while  wishing  you  as  much  virtue, 
and  more  happiness  than  he  had,  flatters  herself  that  the  life  and 
the  throne  you  owe  to  him  will  bind  you  to  follow  his  example  ; * 
and  ‘ The  astonishment  we  feel  when  kings  sincerely  love  the 
happiness  of  their  people  is  a thing  very  shameful  to  them.’ 
Voltaire  himself  said  afterwards  that  he  had  advocated  in  it  peace 
and  tolerance  in  religion  and  told  Rome  many  home  truths.  No 
wonder  the  censor  damned  it. 

If  anything  had  been  needed — but  nothing  was  needed — to 
make  Voltaire  more  alert,  eager,  and  determined  to  give  his  epic 
to  the  world,  it  would  have  been  that  ministerial  prohibition. 

• d2 


36 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIEE 


[1723 


Its  publication  in  Holland  was  conditional  on  its  publication  in 
Paris.  Voltaire,  as  has  been  well  said,  had  not  written  an  epic 
to  keep  it  in  a portfolio.  He  lost  no  time.  With  the  help  of 
the  Bernieres  and  ever  ready  and  goodnatured  Theriot,  he  surrepti- 
tiously printed  two  thousand  copies  at  Rouen.  That  occupation 
took  at  least  five  months — from  the  June  of  1728  until  the  October. 
He  was  himself  mostly  in  Paris,  staying  with  the  Bernieres  on 
the  Quai  des  Theatins,  where  the  noise  nearly  drove  him  dis- 
tracted ; or  in  a very  poor  lodging  of  his  own.  Garret  or  chateau, 
what  did  it  matter  ? The  ‘ Henriade  ’ was  everything — his 
world. 

In  September  he  was  back  at  Riviere  Bourdet.  Everyone 
concerned  in  the  scheme  was  infinitely  active  and  secret.  ‘ Little 
de  Genonville’  died  in  this  September  of  a very  bad  kind  of 
smallpox  then  epidemic  in  Paris.  Voltaire  mourned  him  much 
and  long.  He  had  a new  tragedy  in  hand  to  keep  his  mind  from 
the  tragedies  and  trials  of  life,  and  turned  to  ‘ Mariamne  ’ for 
the  comfort  and  change  of  thought  he  needed.  It  was  finished 
early  in  November,  and  the  author  put  it  in  his  pocket  and  went 
to  stay  with  his  friend  M.  de  Maisons,  at  the  Chateau  of  Maisons, 
in  the  forest  of  St.  Germains,  nine  miles  from  Paris,  where  were 
fetes,  parties,  gaieties,  and  where  Adrienne  Lecouvreur^was  coming 
to  read  ‘ Mariamne  ’ to  the  guests. 

Maisons  was  but  four-and-twenty,  delicate,  noble,  accom- 
plished ; destined,  it  seemed,  for  all  great  things,  but  to  die  too 
soon.  Madame,  his  wife,  was  the  friend  of  that  old  love  of 
Voltaire’s,  Madame  de  Villars. 

By  November  4 at  least  two  of  the  guests,  Voltaire  and 
Adrienne  Lecouvreur,  had  arrived.  Two  days  later  Voltaire 
developed  smallpox. 

No  one  can  gain  an  adequate  idea  of  his  character  without 
realising  in  what  6 a thin  and  wretched  case  ’ Nature  had  en- 
veloped ‘ what  is  called  my  soul.’  No  other  great  man,  perhaps, 
ever  fought  such  a plucky  fight  against  physical  weakness,  weari- 
ness, and  infirmities.  Voltaire  was  not  always  ill,  but  he  was 
never  well.  One  of  his  valets  said  that  his  state  of  indisposition 
was  natural  and  permanent  and  accompanied  him  from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave.  He  himself  said  he  had  never  passed  a single  day 
without  suffering,  and  could  not  even  imagine  what  it  must  be  like 


Mt.  29]  THE  4 HENRI  ADE,’  & A VISIT  TO  COURT 


37 


to  be  in  robust  health.  But  he  had  what  he  called  his  ‘ infallible 
secret  ’ — work.  Others  have  used  physical  weakness  as  an 
excuse  for  mental  idleness,  and  indisposition  as  a natural  holiday 
from  labour.  But  not  Voltaire.  He  dictated  when  he  was  too 
ill  to  write  ; and  when  he  was  too  ill  to  think,  he  read  dull  books 
for  information  which  he  might  find  useful  and  make  amusing  ; 
and  when  he  was  yet  worse,  and  could  do  nothing  else,  he  read 
and  wrote  that  gay  mockery  of  his  leisure,  his  ‘Pucelle.’  The 
body  was  but  the  ragged  covering  of  the  soul  at  its  best ; at  its 
worst,  it  was  a subtle  and  seducing  enemy,  and  one  must  be  ever 
up  and  at  it,  with  a thrust  here  and  a lunge  there,  lest  by  any 
means  it  get  the  mastery.  Voltaire  fought  it  his  whole  life 
long — and  always  won.  4 Toujours  allant  et  souffrant  ’ was  his 
definition  of  himself.  He  hardly  ever  made  a happier. 

In  the  present  case,  his  disease  was  of  that  confluent  type 
which  a couple  of  months  earlier  had  killed  de  Genonville. 
Voltaire  was  very  ill.  He  went  so  far,  he  said,  as  to  call  the 
cure , make  his  confession,  and  his  will,  1 which,  you  will  well 
believe,  was  very  short.’ 

But  he  was  placed  under  the  enlightened  care  of  a Doctor 
Gervasi,  physician  to  the  Chevalier  de  Rohan,  who  saved  his  life 
with  much  lemonade  and  more  common-sense. 

Voltaire  had  always  that  interest  in  medicine  which  by  no 
means  implies  faith  in  doctors.  With  two  famous  exceptions — 
Gervasi  was  one — he  mistrusted  that  eighteenth-century  faculty 
as  it  deserved  to  be  mistrusted.  He  wrote  afterwards  a very 
minute  description  of  his  symptoms  and  treatment  for  the  benefit 
of  an  old  Baron  de  Breteuil,  the  father  of  Madame  du  Chatelet. 

Adrienne  Lecouvreur,  it  is  said,  who  once  had  been  something 
more  than  Voltaire’s  friend,  never  left  his  bedside  until  Theriot, 
whom  she  had  summoned,  came  to  be  with  him. 

The  Maisons  were  prodigal  of  kindnesses.  The  day  after  he 
was  out  of  absolute  danger,  the  patient  was  writing  verses.  On 
the  twenty-sixth  day  from  his  seizure,  that  is  December  1,  1723, 
he  left  for  Paris.  He  was  not  more  than  two  hundred  feet  away 
from  the  chateau  when  the  wing  he  had  been  occupying  caught 
fire  and  was  burnt  to  the  ground. 

As  such  accidental  disinfectants  were  the  only  ones  known 
to  that  age,  the  conflagration  was  a blessing  in  disguise.  But 


38 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1723-25 


Voltaire  naturally  felt  overwhelmed  with  compunction,  as  if  he 
had  burnt  the  chateau  himself.  As  for  the  Maisons,  the  letters 
they  wrote  him  are  examples  of  that  exquisite  grace  and  tact 
known  to  complete  perfection  only  to  France,  and  to  the  France 
before  the  Revolution. 

In  the  very  early  days  of  1724  certain  innocent-looking, 
plodding  agricultural  vans  arrived  in  Paris  from  Rouen.  By  the 
exertions  of  Madame  de  Bernieres  the  great  packages  they  con- 
tained got  through  the  douane — somehow.  Theriot  was  ready 
in  the  capital  with  his  two  thousand  bindings.  Voltaire’s 
injunctions  that  his  child  should  be  properly  clad  had  not  been 
in  vain. 

The  August  of  1723  had  seen  the  death  of  Cardinal  Dubois ; 
the  December  the  death  of  the  Regent.  Surely  the  time  was 
favourable  ! The  censor  had  condemned  the  book — what  adver- 
tisement could  be  better  ? 

And  lo  ! on  a sudden  the  1 League  ’ was  all  over  the  city — on 
the  toilet  tables  of  the  women,  in  the  salons,  in  the  coffee-houses  ; 
aye,  and  in  the  King’s  palace  itself.  It  was  of  course  a thousand 
times  more  tempting  and  delicious  for  being  forbidden  fruit. 

Was  it  absurdly  imitated  from  the  1 iEneid  ’ ? Did  Henry  of 
Navarre  and  Elizabeth  of  England,  who  never  met  in  real  life, 
meet  in  the  poem  for  an  immense  interview  ? Well,  what  of 
that?  It  was  daring,  impetuous,  and  prohibited.  That  was 
enough.  It  was  soon  all  over  Europe,  translated  into  many 
languages,  fulsomely  admired,  parodied,  burlesqued,  abused, 
pirated,  copied.  It  had  all  the  successes.  A year  later  Voltaire 
could  say  truthfully  in  his  airy  manner  that  he  had  made  poetry 
the  fashion. 

The  production  of  his  tragedy  1 Mariamne  ’ at  the  Comedie 
Fra^aise  in  this  March  of  1724  came  like  a dash  of  cold  water 
on  his  rising  spirits.  It  was  a failure.  A wag  in  the  pit  spoilt 
the  critical  moment  of  the  heroine’s  death  with  a foolish  mot . 

The  author  withdrew  1 Mariamne  ’ to  rewrite  it,  as  was  his 
indefatigable  fashion,  and  went  to  recover  his  disappointment  and 
his  always  ailing  health  at  the  waters  of  Forges,  near  Rouen, 
whither  he  was  accompanied  by  the  young  Duke  of  Richelieu. 

At  Forges  the  invalid  drank  the  waters,  lost  his  money  at 
pharaoh,  wrote  a gay  little  comedy  called  ‘ L’lndiscret,’  and  made 


JEt.  29-31]  THE  ‘ HENRIADE/  & A VISIT  TO  COURT  39 


the  acquaintance  of  the  French  Court,  then  at  Chantilly,  near 
Forges. 

The  French  Court  then  consisted  of  a King  of  fourteen  ; the 
Duke  of  Bourbon,  who  had  obtained  the  post  of  Prime  Minister 
simply  by  asking  for  it ; and  the  Duke’s  mistress,  Madame 
de  Prie.  The  mistress  may  be  said  to  have  ruled  the 
kingdom,  since  she  ruled  the  Duke,  and  the  Duke  ruled  the 
King. 

This  wary  Voltaire  propitiated  her,  dedicated  to  her  ‘L’Indis- 
cret/ and  made  her  his  very  useful  friend.  Drinking  the  waters 
(‘There  is  more  vitriol  in  a bottle  of  Forges  water  than  in  a 
bottle  of  ink/  he  wrote ; ‘ and  I do  not  believe  ink  is  so  very  good 
for  the  health  ’)  was  brought  to  a tragic  conclusion  by  the  Due 
de  Melun,  who  was  out  hunting  with  Richelieu,  being  gored  to 
death  by  a stag.  The  hunt  was  at  Chantilly,  and  the  unhappy 
Melun  died  in  the  arms  of  the  Duke  of  Bourbon  and  in  the 
presence  of  the  Court.  Voltaire,  who  never  abandoned  a friend, 
stayed  another  fortnight  to  console  Richelieu,  and  then  went 
back  to  Paris,  which  he  had  reached  by  August  15. 

He  had  a lodging  in  the  Rue  de  Beaune  now,  but  the  unbear- 
able noise  of  the  street  drove  him  into  an  hotel  garni , and  the 
discomforts  of  the  hotel  garni  back  again  to  the  Rue  de  Beaune. 
Finally,  he  completed  an  arrangement  begun  the  year  before,  and 
rented  a room  from  the  Bernieres  in  their  noisy  house. 

Wherever  he  was,  he  was  working  as  usual.  He  rewrote 
‘ Mariamne.’  He  obtained  for  Theriot  the  offer  of  the  secretary- 
ship to  Richelieu — Richelieu  having  been  appointed  ambassador 
to  Vienna.  And  M.  Theriot  is  too  idle  to  be  bothered  with  regular 
work,  and  twice  declines  the  offer.  Voltaire  was  not  a little 
mortified,  and  found  forgiveness  difficult ; but  he  forgave.  His 
letters  on  the  subject  are  an  admirable  lesson  in  the  arts  of 
friendship  and  of  forbearance. 

In  April  of  the  next  year,  1725,  the  rewritten  ‘ Mariamne  * 
was  produced,  with  that  gay  little  bagatelle , ‘ L’Indiscret/  after 
it.  ‘ L’Indiscret  ’ was  said  to  justify  its  name  in  that  it  took  too 
much  liberty  with  the  upper  classes.  ‘ Mariamne  ’ was  very 
fairly  successful  now.  But,  after  all,  the  author  had  had  it  and 
‘ L’Indiscret,’  as  well  as  the  ‘ Henriade,’  all  printed  at  his  own 
expense,  and  at  a very  great  expense.  Fame,  he  observed,  was 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


40 


[1725 


agreeable  but  not  nourishing.  His  thrifty  soul  began  to  look  out 
for  the  nourishment. 

In  this  summer  of  1725  Louis  XV.,  aged  fifteen,  was  to 
be  married  to  Marie  Leczinska,  aged  twenty-one,  daughter  of 
Stanislas,  ex-King  of  Poland.  Madame  de  Prie  gave  Voltaire 
the  refusal  of  rooms  in  her  house  at  Fontainebleau,  where  the 
royal  honeymoon  was  to  be  spent.  Here  was  an  opportunity ! 
He  had  said  not  a year  ago  that  he  had  renounced  Courts  for  ever 
through  the  weakness  of  his  stomach  and  the  strength  of  his 
reason. 

But  in  many  respects,  and  in  this  respect  above  all,  he  was 
nothing  if  not  inconsistent.  He  cried  for  royal  favour  as  a spoilt 
child  cries  for  the  moon  ; and  when  he  had  it,  it  bored,  wearied, 
and  irritated  him.  But  in  his  day,  if  the  king,  and  the  person 
who  ruled  the  king,  did  not  smile  on  talent,  talent  had  small 
chance  of  success.  £To  make  one’s  fortune,’  Voltaire  wrote 
bitterly  hereafter,  £ it  is  better  to  speak  four  words  to  the  king’s 
mistress  than  to  write  a hundred  volumes.’ 

So  on  August  27,  1725,  he  came  up  to  Madame  de  Prie’s 
house  at  Fontainebleau.  The  festivities  were  in  full  swing, 
though  the  marriage  was  yet  to  come.  Voltaire  was  one-and- 
thirty.  He  was  there  by  his  own  choice.  He  knew  himself 
to  be  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  well  placed.  Yet  his  visit  had 
not  lasted  three  days  when  he  wished  himself  away  again.  There 
was  a dreadful  rumour,  too,  that  all  the  pensions  were  to  be  dis- 
continued, and  a new  tax  imposed  instead  to  pay  for  the  bride’s 
chiffons ! Then  Voltaire  wrote  a little  divertissement  to  amuse 
the  royalties,  and  the  master  of  the  ceremonies  preferred  £Le 
Medecin  Malgre  Lui.’  On  Wednesday,  September  5,  the  wedding 
took  place.  Then  the  bride  accorded  her  gracious  permission  to 
M.  de  Voltaire  to  dedicate  to  her  £ (Edipe  ’ and  ‘ Mariamne.’ 
Things  were  a little  better  ! Her  father,  with  whom  Voltaire 
was  to  have  much  to  do  hereafter,  begged  for  a copy  of  the 
‘Henriade’  on  his  daughter’s  recommendation.  Voltaire  was 
presented  to  her  Majesty.  Things  were  better  still ! £ She  has 

wept  at  “ Mariamne,”  she  has  laughed  at  “ L’lndiscret,”  she 
talks  to  me  often,  she  calls  me  her  “ poor  Voltaire.”  ’ Charming  ! 
charming  ! but  just  a little  bit — well,  unsubstantial.  And  then 
she  allowed  her  poet  a pension  of  fifteen  hundred  livres. 


LOUIS  XV. 

From  the  Picture  by  Carle  Van  Loo  in  the  Museum  at  Versailles . 


Mr.  31]  THE  ‘ HENEIADE,’  & A VISIT  TO  COUET 


41 


Voltaire’s  state  of  mind  at  Court  was  the  state  of  mind  of 
many — perhaps  of  most — courtiers.  It  is  a dreadful  bore  to  be 
here — but  it  is  very  advantageous  ! The  cage  is  really  so 
exquisitely  gilded  that  one  must  try  not  to  see  the  bars  through 
the  gilt ! I want  to  get  out,  and  I could  get  out — but  I am  so 
very  lucky  to  be  here,  and  so  many  people  envy  me,  that  I certainly 
will  not , What  an  inexplicable  and  yet  what  a very  common 
state  of  mind  it  is  ! 

Voltaire  could  now  count  on  the  friendship,  not  only  of  the 
Queen,  but  of  Madame  de  Prie,  and  of  the  minister  Duverney. 
He  was  a pensioner  of  both  their  Majesties.  The  Court  acknow- 
ledged him  the  first  poet  in  France.  Epigrams  and  the  Bastille 
were  in  the  background.  He  had  hopes  of  being  useful  to  his 
friends. 

All  this  was  not  ungenerous  payment  for  three  months’ 
ennui  at  the  finest  Court  in  the  world.  But  was  it  sufficient  ? 
Voltaire  had  indeed  his  gift  of  satiric  observation  to  make  the 
dullest  entertainments  amusing.  ‘The  Queen  is  every  day 
assassinated  with  Pindaric  odes,  sonnets,  epistles,  and  epitha- 
lamiums,’  he  wrote ; ‘ I should  think  she  takes  the  poets  for  the 
Court  fools ; and  if  she  does  she  is  right,  for  it  is  a great  folly 
for  a man  of  letters  to  be  here.’  The  boredom  was  stronger  than 
the  satisfaction  after  all.  To  hang  about  in  the  antechamber, 
tickling  the  jaded  fancy  of  the  Court  gentlemen  with  one’s  mots — 
to  try  and  rouse  the  sleepy  selfishness  of  a callow  king  with  one’s 
finest  wit — to  flatter  and  cajole  a duke’s  mistress  and  a poor, 
honest,  simple  little  foreigner  because  she  happened  to  be  a king’s 
wife — to  play  for  apples  of  Sodom  that  turned  to  dust  and  ashes 
at  one’s  touch — was  it  worth  while  ? ‘ It  is  better  to  be  a lackey 

of  wits  than  a wit  of  lackeys  ’ — better  to  do  any  work  than  none 
— better  any  life  than  this  narcotic  sleep  of  easy  idleness.  In 
Voltaire’s  ear  that  siren,  Verse,  was  always  whispering  and  calling 
him  away.  In  his  heart  were  passionate  convictions  throbbing 
to  be  spoken.  He  had  been  glad  to  go  to  Court.  He  was  more 
than  glad  to  get  away. 

His  zeal  for  a fight  must  have  been  more  to  the  fore  than  ever 
after  those  three  months  of  amiable  apathy.  He  had  it  soon 
enough. 

It  was  in  the  December  of  1725  that  the  great  Chevalier 


42 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1725-26 


de  Rohan,  meeting  this  lean,  brilliant,  impertinent  upstart  of  an 
author  at  the  opera,  said  to  him  scornfully,  4M.  de  Voltaire — 
Arouet — whatever  your  name  is ? ’ 

The  Chevalier  de  Rohan  was  himself  the  representative  of 
the  haughtiest  and  most  illustrious  family  in  France,  and  of  the 
same  house  as  that  Rohan  who  was  to  drag  its  pride  through 
the  mud  of  the  episode  of  the  Diamond  Necklace. 

A middle-aged  debauchee  ; 4 a degenerate  plant,  a coward  and 
a usurer  ’ — in  the  vigorous  words  of  a contemporary — was  this 
great  Chevalier  whom  Voltaire  met  that  night. 

He  made  no  answer  at  the  moment.  Two  days  after,  at  the 
Comedie  Fra^aise — most  likely  in  Adrienne  Lecouvreur’s  box 
there — Rohan  repeated  the  question. 

4 1 do  not  drag  about  a great  name,  but  I know  how  to  honour 
the  name  I bear/  was  the  answer.  There  is  another  version  of  it : 

4 1 begin  my  name ; the  Chevalier  de  Rohan  finishes  his.’  Or, 
as  Voltaire  himself  wrote  after  in  4 Rome  Sauvee  ’ : 

My  name  begins  with  me  : your  honour  fend 
Lest  yours  with  you  shall  have  an  end. 

The  answer  was  at  least  one  which  made  the  Chevalier  raise  his 
cane ; and  Voltaire  clapped  his  hand  on  his  sword.  Adrienne, 
of  course,  fainted,  and  the  incident  closed. 

A few  days  later  Voltaire  was  dining  with  the  Duke  of  Sully. 
He  was  called  from  the  table  to  speak  to  someone  in  a carriage 
outside.  He  went  unsuspiciously  enough.  A couple  of  Rohan's 
lackeys  fell  on  him  and  beat  him  over  the  shoulders.  Rohan,  it 
is  said,  looked  out  of  the  window  of  his  coach  and  called  out : 

4 Don’t  hit  his  head ! something  good  may  come  out  of  that ! ’ 
And  the  bystanders,  cringing  to  rank  and  success  as  they  needs 
must,  observed  admiringly,  4 The  noble  lord  ! ’ Voltaire,  beside 
himself  with  fury,  flung  off  his  assailants  at  last,  rushed  back  to 
Sully,  begged  him  to  redress  the  wrong,  to  go  to  the  police,  to 
speak  to  the  minister.  Voltaire  had  been  as  4 a son  of  the  house  ’ 
for  ten  years,  and  had  immortalised  Sully’s  ancestors  in  the 
4 Henriade.’  But  Sully  was  not  going  to  brave  the  wrath  of  such 
a great  man  as  his  cousin  Rohan  for  a bourgeois  author  with  a 
talent  for  getting  into  disgrace.  Voltaire  left  the  house — never 
to  enter  it  again.  He  went  straight  to  the  opera,  where  he  knew 


^Et.  31-32]  THE  4 HENRIADE,’  & A VISIT  TO  COURT  43 


he  would  find  Madame  de  Prie,  told  her  his  story,  and  enlisted 
her  sympathy.  For  a few  days  it  seemed  as  if  she  would  succeed 
in  getting  her  lover,  the  Duke  of  Bourbon’s,  influence  for  Voltaire. 
But  the  friends  of  Rohan  showed  the  Duke  an  epigram  on  his  one 
eye,  which  sounded  clever  enough  to  be  Voltaire’s,  and  ruined  his 
credit  at  once.  He  was  baffled  on  every  side.  Marais,  that  keen 
old  legal  writer  of  memoirs,  declares  that,  though  he  showed 
himself  as  much  as  he  could  in  town  and  Court,  no  one  pitied 
him  and  his  so-called  friends  turned  their  backs.  He  had  been 
publicly  caned ! He  was  ridiculous ! And  the  fear  of  being 
absurd  was  a thousand  times  stronger  than  the  fear  of  hell  in 
eighteenth-century  Paris.  Any  other  but  Voltaire  would  have 
hidden  his  head  in  obscurity  and  have  been  thankful  to  be 
forgotten. 

But  with  this  man  an  insult  raised  all  the  vivid  intensity  of 
his  nature.  1 God  take  care  of  my  friends,’  said  he  ; ‘ I can  look 
after  my  enemies  myself.’  For  more  than  three  months  he  led 
a life  of  feverish  indignation  and  was  every  moment  busy  with 
revenge.  He  learnt  fencing.  He  had  no  aptitude  for  any  bodily 
exercise.  But  he  perfected  himself  in  this  one  with  all  the 
persistency  and  thoroughness  of  his  nature.  If  he  was  not 
normally  courageous,  he  had  plenty  of  daring  now.  The  Bohans, 
anyhow,  feared  him  so  much  that  they  kept  him  under  police 
supervision.  On  April  16,  1726,  the  lieutenant  of  police  recorded 
that  Voltaire  intended  to  insult  Rohan  with  eclat  and  at  once  ; 
that  he  was  living  at  his  fencing  master’s,  but  continually 
changing  his  residence.  On  April  17  Voltaire  went  to  Adrienne 
Lecouvreur’s  box  at  the  Comedie,  where  he  knew  he  would  find 
Rohan.  Theriot  accompanied  him  and  stood  without  the  box, 
but  where  he  could  hear  everything.  1 Sir,’  said  Voltaire,  ‘if  you 
have  not  forgotten  the  outrage  of  which  I complain,  I hope  you 
will  give  me  satisfaction.’  The  great  man  agreed.  The  hour 
fixed  was  nine  o’clock  the  next  morning ; the  place,  St.  Martin’s 
Gate.  But  before  that,  Voltaire  found  himself  for  the  second 
time  in  the  Bastille.  One  can  hardly  fancy  a meaner  revenge. 
By  March  28,  1726,  the  influence,  cunning,  and  poltroonery  of 
Rohan  had  succeeded  in  getting  signed  the  warrant  for  his 
enemy’s  arrest  and  detention.  Rohan,  in  fact,  was  a great 
noble  ; and  Voltaire,  as  his  rival  playwright  Piron  said  of  himself, 


44  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1726 

was  ‘nothing,  not  even  an  Academician.’  Armand  and  his 
faction  were  only  too  glad  to  be  rid  of  such  a stormy  petrel. 

It  is  not  hard  to  understand  what  a passion  against  the  bitter 
injustice  of  his  gorgeous  day  must  have  surged  in  Voltaire’s 
heart.  ‘ You  do  not  hear  in  England,’  he  wrote  but  a very  short 
time  after,  ‘ of  haute , moyenne , and  basse  justice.’  It  was  in  fact 
literally  true  that  in  France  at  that  period  there  was  not  only 
really,  but  avowedly,  one  ‘justice  ’ for  the  noble,  another  for  the 
bourgeois , and  a third  for  the  canaille . Voltaire  was  in  the 
Bastille  only  a fortnight.  He  was  very  well  treated.  ‘ Everyone 
he  knew,’  wrote  Delaunay  the  governor,  came  to  see  him  ; so  his 
visitors  had  to  be  limited  to  six  a day.  Theriot  brought  him 
English  books.  He  dined  at  Delaunay’s  table.  Also  imprisoned 
in  the  Bastille  was  the  famous  Madame  de  Tencin — young,  clever, 
and  corrupt.  ‘ We  were  like  Pyramus  and  Thisbe,’  Voltaire 
wrote,  ‘ only  we  did  not  kiss  each  other  through  the  chink  in  the 
wall.*  He  could  still  write  gaily.  As  some  people  never  speak 
without  a stammer,  Voltaire  never  spoke  without  a jest.  But 
what  food  in  his  heart  for  new  strange  thought ! Under  what 
crushing  laws  was  this  great  French  people  bound  in  darkness, 
wretchedness,  ignorance  ! ‘We  are  born  in  slavery  and  die  in 
it.’  It  has  been  said  that  Voltaire  left  France  a poet  and 
returned  from  England  a philosopher.  But  that  fortnight  in  the 
Bastille  must  have  made  him  realise,  if  he  had  not  known  already, 
that  he  was  born  for  a destiny  far  weightier  and  greater  than  that 
of  a Corneille  or  a Racine. 

‘ What  is  done  with  people  who  forge  lettres  de  cachet  ? ’ he 
asked  the  lieutenant  of  police  one  day,  when  he  was  in  prison. 
‘ They  are  hanged.’  ‘ Good  ! ’ was  the  answer,  ‘ in  anticipation 
of  the  time  when  those  who  sign  genuine  ones  shall  be  hanged 
too.’ 

A few  days  after  his  imprisonment  he  wrote  to  the  Minister 
of  the  Department  of  Paris  : 

‘ Sieur  de  Voltaire  humbly  represents  that  he  has  been 
assaulted  by  the  brave  Chevalier  de  Rohan,  assisted  by  six  cut- 
throats, behind  whom  the  chevalier  was  courageously  posted ; and 
that  ever  since  Sieur  de  Voltaire  has  tried  to  repair,  not  his  own 
honour,  but  that  of  the  chevalier,  which  has  proved  too  difficult.’ 

He  went  on  to  beg  permission  to  go  to  England.  His  order 


HSt.  32]  THE  * HENRIADE/  & A VISIT  TO  COUET 


45 


of  liberty  was  signed  on  April  29,  1726.  But  there  were  many 
formalities  to  be  observed  before  it  could  be  put  into  execution. 
On  May  2 Delaunay  received  it  with  its  accompanying  conditions. 
Voltaire  was  free — to  go  to  England,  accompanied  as  far  as  Calais 
by  Conde,  one  of  the  turnkeys  of  the  Bastille,  to  see  that  he  really 
did  go  there. 

The  businesslike  prisoner  asked  Madame  de  Bernieres  to  lend 
him  her  travelling  carriage  to  take  him  to  Calais.  She,  Madame 
du  Deffand,  and  Theriot  came  to  say  good-bye  to  him.  He  left 
the  Bastille  on  May  3.  On  May  5 he  was  writing  to  Theriot  from 
Calais.  He  stayed  there  three  or  four  days,  and  about  the  end  of 
the  first  week,  in  May  1726,  landed  at  Greenwich. 


46 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1726 


CHAPTER  V 

ENGLAND,  AND  THE  ‘ ENGLISH  LETTERS  ’ 

It  was  the  last  year  of  the  reign  of  George  I.  Swift  was  Dean  of 
St.  Patrick’s.  Pope  was  writing  that  masterpiece  of  brilliant 
malice,  the  ‘ Dunciad,*  at  Twickenham.  Gay,  Young,  and 
Thomson  were  in  the  plenitude  of  their  poetic  powers.  Sarah, 
Duchess  of  Marlborough,  was  compiling  her  memoirs  at  Blenheim. 
Bolingbroke,  Hervey,  and  the  Walpoles  shed  their  lustre  on 
politics.  Even  at  the  boorish  Court  there  was  one  brilliant 
woman — Caroline,  Princess  of  Wales.  Newton  was  near  his 
dying.  And  Locke  being  dead  yet  spoke. 

It  was  one  of  those  rare  spring  days,  with  a cloudless  sky  and 
a soft  west  wind,  when  Voltaire  first  set  foot  in  England. 
Greenwich  was  en  fete , with  its  Fair  in  full  progress — Olympian 
games  and  the  pretty  daughters  of  the  people,  whom,  in  their 
gala  dress,  the  traveller  mistook  for  fine  ladies.  When  he  met 
the  fine  ladies  that  very  evening  in  London,  most  likely  at  the 
house  of  his  old  friend  Lord  Bolingbroke,  their  hauteur  and  malice 
disgusted  him,  and  he  said  very  frankly  that  he  preferred  the 
maidens  of  Greenwich. 

He  tells  how  the  very  next  morning  he  went  to  a coffee-house 
in  the  City,  and  gives  a gay  description  of  the  phlegmatic  apathy 
of  the  company.  If  they  were  laughing  in  their  sleeves  at  the 
foreigner,  the  foreigner’s  description  of  them  remains  to-day  a 
notable  example  of  that  keen,  clear-cut,  airy,  bantering  humour  of 
which  he  was  so  perfect  a master. 

But  if  he  wrote  lightly  hereafter,  his  mood  when  he  landed  in 
England  was  no  laughing  one. 

This  vif  and  sensitive  child  of  fortune  could  not  forget  that  he 
was  an  exile — and  exiled  unjustly.  His  pensions  both  from  King 
and  Queen  had  been  stopped.  He  had  an  exchange  letter  on  a 
Jew  in  London,  but  before  he  presented  it  the  Jew  was  bankrupt 


JEt.  32]  ENGLAND,  & THE  ‘ ENGLISH  LETTERS 


47 


and  could  not  pay  him,  and  he  was  forced  to  accept  a few  guineas 
King  George  I.  ‘ had  the  generosity  to  give  me.’  His  health  was 
as  indifferent  as  usual.  He  was  in  a country  of  which  he  knew 
little  or  nothing  of  the  language  or  the  customs.  He  had  begun 
the  world  brilliantly  perhaps,  but  he  had  greatly  fallen.  Those 
first  few  weeks  in  England  are  likely  to  have  been  among  the 
unhappieet  in  his  life. 

He  had  been  on  English  shores  but  a very  short  time  when 
he  slipped  back  incognito  to  Paris  (he  had  promised  the  paternal 
government  to  go  to  England,  not  to  stay  there),  and,  with  his 
life  in  his  hands,  waited  about  in  the  capital  for  two  months  for 
the  man  Rohan,  ‘ whom  the  instinct  of  his  cowardice  hid  from 
me.*  Theriot  knew  of  the  escapade,  but  no  one  else.  Voltaire 
wrote  him  an  account  of  it  on  August  12,  1726. 

He  was  hardly  back  in  England  again  when,  in  September 
and  in  the  first  budget  of  letters  he  had  had  in  his  exile,  he 
received  the  news  of  the  death  of  his  sister  Catherine.  She  was 
nine  years  older  than  himself.  She  had  long  been  married  to 
M.  Mignot,  and  had  children  and  cares  of  her  own  to  engross  her 
affections  and  her  thoughts.  It  does  not  seem  that  Voltaire  had 
of  late  seen  very  much  of  her.  But  all  the  mothering  he  had 
had  since  he  was  seven  years  old  she  had  given  him.  Her  death 
filled  his  soul  with  a gloomy  despair.  ‘ I should  have  died  and 
she  have  lived,’  he  wrote  to  Madame  de  Bernieres.  ‘ It  was  a 
mistake  of  destiny.’  To  the  end  of  his  days  he  benefited  her 
children  with  a large  generosity.  Bearing  evident  reference  to 
her  death  is  that  letter,  called  the  Letter  of  Consolation,  written 
from  England  in  1728  to  a friend  in  sorrow.  No  reader  of  it  who 
has  himself  suffered  will  doubt  that  its  writer  knew  how  to  suffer 
too,  and  will  find  in  that  wise  and  patient  philosophy  a soothing 
of  the  troubles  common  to  a Voltaire  and  to  all  men. 

He  had  plenty  of  introductions  in  England.  His  acquaintance 
with  the  Count  de  Morville,  the  intimate  of  the  Walpoles,  gave 
him  the  entr&e  of  the  great  Whig  houses.  Bolingbroke,  who  had 
returned  from  France  in  1728,  would  present  him  to  the  Tories. 
He  further  knew,  it  is  said,  Lord  Stair  and  Bishop  Atterbury. 
He  had  a talent — that  delightful  French  talent — for  making  new 
friends.  And  he  was  soon  engrossed  in  an  astounding  application 
to  the  English  language,  and  a study  of  its  government,  laws, 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


48 


[1726-27 


literature,  and  progress  which  remains  the  best  ever  made  by 
a Frenchman. 

It  is  doubtful  if,  when  he  landed  here  in  May  1726,  he  knew 
a single  syllable  of  English  except  what  he  had  gathered  from 
the  English  books  Theriot  had  procured  for  him  when  he  was  in 
the  Bastille.  There  is  a letter  to  a wine  merchant,  in  very  bad 
English  certainly,  but  still  in  English,  which  he  is  supposed  to 
have  written  when  he  had  been  at  the  most  a few  months  in 
England. 

The  year  1726  was  not  out  when  he  was  writing  to  other 
friends  in  that  intricate  tongue  and  attacking  its  idioms  with  a 
splendid  dash  and  audacity. 

In  1727  he  composed  some  melodious  English  verses  to  Lady 
Harley;  and  in  his  English  letters  of  this  and  the  next  year 
to  Theriot  and  others  it  will  be  seen  that  the  language  was 
sufficiently  his  own  for  him  to  stamp  it  with  his  inimitable  style. 
Authorities  differ  as  to  how  good  or  how  bad  was  the  accent  with 
which  he  spoke. 

He  is  said,  when  he  discovered  that  the  word  6 plague  * was 
pronounced  as  one  syllable,  to  have  wished  that  plague  would 
take  one  half  of  the  language  and  ague  the  other ; and  to  have 
complained  a good  deal  of  a tongue  in  which  a word  spelt  hand- 
kerchief was  pronounced  ’ankicher.  That  he  was  fluent  in  it 
there  is  no  doubt.  An  uncharitable  person  declared  that  be  had 
soon  mastered  the  language,  even  to  the  oaths  and  curses.  Why 
not  ? Oaths  and  curses  adorned  the  polite  conversation  of  the 
day,  and  why  should  a Voltaire  omit  them  ? But  besides  that 
dinner-table  English  he  could  soon  speak  easily  the  very  different 
English  required  for  discussing  science,  philosophy,  religion — the 
speciality  of  an  English  expert,  in  that  expert’s  mother  tongue. 

Soon  after  he  returned  to  France  he  declared,  in  the  dedication 
of  his  play  ‘ Brutus  ’ to  Lord  Bolingbroke,  that,  having  6 passed 
two  years  in  a constant  study  of  the  English  language,’  he  found 
it  awkward  to  write  in  French.  ‘ I was  almost  accustomed  to 
think  in  English.’ 

Thirty  years  after  he  had  left  England  behind  him  for  ever, 
he  wrote  English  letters  to  English  friends.  He  quarrelled  in  that 
tongue  with  his  mistress  in  middle  life,  wrote  a couplet  in  it  when  he 
was  eighty,  and  talked  in  it  with  his  friends  in  his  extreme  old  age. 


Ms.  32-33]  ENGLAND,  & THE  1 ENGLISH  LETTERS  ’ 49 


He  made  his  headquarters  at  Wandsworth,  already  a colony 
of  French  refugees,  with  one  Everard  Falkener,  whom  he  had 
met  in  Paris,  the  best  type  of  an  English  merchant,  cultivated, 
hospitable,  enlightened.  The  two  bore  each  other  a lifelong 
friendship.  The  visitor  was  never  of  the  idle  kind,  waiting  about 
to  be  amused.  He  was  always,  on  the  other  hand,  indefatigably 
busy.  He  was  supremely  interested  in  everything,  greedy  of 
information,  matchlessly  quick  to  observe.  Besides,  he  could 
never  have  been  very  long  together  at  Falkener’s  Wandsworth 
villa. 

Three  months  out  of  the  thirty-four  he  spent  in  England 
he  stayed  at  Lord  Peterborough’s.  He  was  constantly  at  Lord 
Bolingbroke’s,  either  at  his  town  house  in  Pall  Mall  or  in  the 
country.  He  speaks  himself  of  having  known  Bishop  Berkeley, 
and  Gay  of  the  ‘Beggar’s  Opera.’  Before  he  left  England  he 
had  visited  almost  every  celebrated  person  in  it. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  Voltaire’s  passionate  admiration  for 
a country  in  which  genius  was  everywhere  the  best  passport  to 
glory,  riches,  and  honour.  He  had  lived  under  a system  so 
different ! Here  his  own  talent  immediately  procured  him  an 
entrance  into  that  noblest  aristocracy,  the  aristocracy  of  intellect. 
When  was  it  that  he  went  to  stay  at  Bubb  Dodington’s  at  East- 
bury  in  Dorsetshire,  and  at  that  Liberty  Hall  of  the  Muses  met 
Young  of  the  ‘ Night  Thoughts  ’ and  Thomson  of  the  ‘ Seasons  ’ ? 
The  man  who  was,  to  be,  English  parson  and  author  of  those 
solemn  religious  periods  of  the  ‘ Thoughts  ’ was  now  writing  his 
‘ Satires  ’ and  had  not  a little  in  common  with  the  sceptical, 
cynic  Frenchman  of  the  6 Epistle  to  Uranie.’  The  one  was  as 
brilliant  a conversationalist  as  the  other.  As  for  the  ‘ Seasons,’ 
though  Voltaire  politely  praised  them,  he  considered  Nature  an 
ill-cho3en  subject  for  a Scotchman  who  knew  nothing  of  the 
warmth  and  glow  of  the  South. 

At  Lord  Peterborough’s  Voltaire  met  Swift — ‘ Rabelais  in  his 
Senses,’  that  greater  than  any  Rabelais — ‘ one  of  the  most  extra- 
ordinary men  that  England  has  produced.’  That  was  Voltaire’s 
judgment  of  him.  He  did  not  like  him  the  less  because  he  was 
‘a  priest  and  mocked  at  everything.’  At  bottom,  the  dark  and 
awful  genius  of  Swift  and  the  vivid  and  passionate  inspiration  of 
Voltaire  had  something  in  common.  At  Peterborough’s  table 

E 


50 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1726—27 


there 

lived. 


sat  then  the  two  finest  masters  of  invective  who  ever 


Voltaire  was  still  quite  new  to  the  country  when  he  made  the 
acquaintance  of  little,  crooked,  papist  Mr.  Pope  of  Twit’nam.  It 
has  been  maliciously  said  that  on  the  occasion  the  visitor  talked 
so  blasphemously  and  indecently  that  he  sent  Pope’s  poor  old 
mother  shuddering  from  the  room.  But  as  at  the  time  Voltaire 
did  not  know  English  and  Pope  and  his  mother  did  not  know 
French,  the  story  may  be  taken  for  what  it  is  worth.  A great 
and  very  natural  admiration  had  the  French  author,  to  whom 
precision,  the  unities,  and  poetical  neatness  were  so  dear,  for  the 
polished  easy  rhythm  of  Mr.  Pope  ; but  that  did  not  prevent  him, 
long  after,  when  he  was  talking  to  James  Boswell  of  Auchinleck 
at  Ferney,  from  diagnosing  the  respective  merits  of  Pope  and 
Prvden.  in  a truly  Voltairian  criticism.  ‘ Pope  drives  a handsome 
chariot  with  a couple  of  neat  nags,  and  Dryden  a coach  and  six 
stately  horses.’  Nor  did  his  love  of  Mr.  Pope’s  style  prevent 
him  loathing  Mr.  Pope’s  philosophy. 

One  day  he  went  to  see  old  Sarah  Marlborough  at  Blenheim, 
and  audaciously  asked  her  to  let  him  see  the  memoirs  she  was 
writing.  ‘ You  must  wait,’  answered  Sarah  ; Tam  just  altering 
my  account  of  Queen  Anne’s  character.  1 have  begun  to  love  her 
again  since  the  present  lot  have  become  our  rulers.’  Is  it  hard 
to  fancy  the  delighted  cynic  humour  on  her  guest’s  shrewd  face 
at  that  naive  reply  ? 

Goldsmith  says  that  she  did  show  him  the  memoirs,  and 
when  he  remonstrated  with  her  for  abusing  her  friends  therein, 
seized  them  out  of  his  hands  in  a rage.  ‘ I thought  the  man 
had  sense,  but  I find  him  at  bottom  either  a fool  or  a philo- 
sopher.’ 

Presently  Gay  was  reading  aloud  to  him  that  ‘ Beggar’s  Opera  ’ 
before  its  publication ; and  he  went  to  see  old  Congreve,  who 
spoke  of  his  plays  as  trifles  beneath  notice,  ‘ and  told  me  to  look 
upon  him  merely  as  a private  gentleman.’  That  literary  snob- 
bishness was  very  little  to  the  taste  of  a Voltaire.  ‘If  you  had 
the  misfortune  to  be  only  a gentleman  like  any  other,’  he 
answered,  ‘ I should  never  have  come  to  see  you.’  It  is  to  be 
hoped  the  foolish  old  playwright  felt  duly  snubbed. 

The  great  Lord  Chesterfield — ‘ the  only  Englishman  who 


Mt.  32-33]  ENGLAND,  & THE  ‘ ENGLISH  LETTERS  ’ 51 


ever  recommended  the  art  of  pleasing  as  the  first  duty  of  life  ’ — 
invited  Voltaire  to  dinner.  When  he  was  asked  a second  time, 
he  had  to  decline,  as  the  gratuities  expected  by  the  servants  were 
too  much  for  his  slenderly  equipped  pockets. 

He  visited  Newton's  niece,  Mrs.  Conduit,  who  told  him  the 
famous  story  of  Newton  and  the  apple.  Voltaire  twice  repeated 
it  in  hi§  works,  and  thus  preserved  it  for  posterity.  He  frequently 
met  and  talked  with  Newton’s  friend  and  disciple,  Clarke. 

In  1727  he  was  introduced  at  the  English  Court.  Had  he 
not  dedicated  4 (Edipe  ’ to  its  King  ? Just  as  in  1728  he  was  to 
dedicate  his  English  edition  of  the  4 Henriade  ’ to  ‘ that  amiable 
philosopher  on  the  throne,’  Caroline,  the  wife  of  George  II. 
At  Court,  doubtless,  he  met  that  lean  malice,  my  Lord  Hervey, 
and  Lady  Hervey,  ‘beautiful  Molly  Lepell.’  He  met  everybody, 
in  fact,  and  saw  everything.  He  went  to  Newmarket  races  and 
to  a Quakers’  meeting.  He  was  continually  at  the  play.  He 
mixed  with  bishops  and  boatmen,  lords,  play-actors,  merchants 
and  politicians.  When  on  one  of  his  rambles  round  London  he 
was  insulted  by  a mob,  he  mounted  on  a few  handy  steps  : ‘ Brave 
Englishmen  ! ’ said  he,  ‘ am  I not  already  unfortunate  enough 
in  not  having  been  born  among  you  ? ’ And  they  were  with 
him  at  once. 

Perhaps  he  was  not  sorry  to  get  away  from  the  wits  and  the 
parties,  to  the  quiet  of  Falkener’s  villa.  He  had  always  some- 
thing better  to  do  than  to  be  a social  light  for  his  own  or  other 
men’s  entertainment. 

When  he  was  at  Wandsworth  he  wrote,  in  English  prose,  the 
first  act  of  ‘ Brutus.’  In  these  thirty-four  months  he  composed 
nearly  the  whole  of  his  ‘ History  of  Charles  XII.’  of  Sweden.  In 
1727  he  took  up  his  abode  for  a time  at  the  Sign  of  the  White 
Peruke,  Maiden  Lane,  Covent  Garden,  that  he  might  the  more 
conveniently  arrange  for  the  publication  by  subscription  of  the 
new  edition  of  his  ‘ Henriade.’  ‘ The  English  generally  make 
good  their  words  and  promises,’  he  said  long  after.  They  did  in 
1728.  The  book  went  into  three  editions.  From  them  Voltaire 
had  omitted  the  tale  of  the  noble  exploits  of  Rosny,  the  ancestor 
of  his  false  friend,  Sully. 

Swift  pushed  the  ‘ Henriade  ’ in  Ireland.  The  English  were 
inclined  to  think  it  too  Catholic,  as  the  Catholics  had  thought 

E 2 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 


52  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1727-28 

it  too  Protestant.  But,  in  their  character  of  a free  and  generous 
people,  they  bought  and  read  it  not  the  less. 

After  a few  months’  residence  in  the  country  this  amazing 
Frenchman  was  turning  ‘ Hudibras  7 into  French  verse. 

After  eighteen  months,  he  wrote,  in  English,  a little  volume 
containing  two  essays  : ‘ An  Essay  upon  the  Civil  Wars  of  France,’ 
and  upon  ‘ The  Epick  Poetry  of  the  European  Nations.’  A pre- 
sentation copy  of  the  first  edition  of  this  daring  little  work, 
published  in  1727,  may  still  be  seen  in  the  British  Museum  with 
a few  words  in  Voltaire’s  handwriting  in  the  corner — ‘ to  Sr.  han- 
slone  from  his  most  humble  servant  voltaire.’  Sir  Hans  Sloane 
was  the  President  of  the  Royal  Society.  This  book  is  now  so 
rare  as  to  be  practically  unobtainable.  It  went  into  a second 
edition  in  1728,  and  into  a fourth  in  1731. 

By  it,  by  ‘ Brutus,’  and  the  ‘ Henriade  ’ Voltaire  gained  a sum 
of  about  two  thousand  pounds. 

The  chronology  of  the  events  of  his  English  visit  remains, 
and  must  remain,  very  imperfect.  He  wrote  very  few  letters 
during  that  period  and  dates  are  not  the  forte  of  his  English 
hosts.  So  much,  however,  is  certain.  He  arrived  in  England 
about  the  end  of  the  first  week  in  May  1726.  By  September, 
he  had  paid  his  stolen  visit  to  France  and  returned  to  these 
shores.  In  January  1727  he  was  presented  at  Court.  On 
March  28  he  was  at  Newton’s  lying-in-state  in  Westminster 
Abbey.  In  July  the  French  authorities  gave  him  permission 
to  return  to  France  for  a while  to  see  to  some  business,  but  he 
did  not  go.  He  spent  the  greater  part  of  the  year  preparing  his 
English  edition  of  the  ‘ Henriade  ’ and  writing  ‘ Charles  XII.’ 
In  December  1727  appeared  the  two  English  essays.  1728  saw 
the  publication  of  the  English  edition  of  his  ‘ Henriade.’ 

Archibald  Ballantyne’s  ‘ Voltaire’s  Visit  to  England  ’ gives 
the  best  and  most  exhaustive  account  of  that  visit  yet  pub- 
lished. 

By  far  the  most  momentous  and  the  most  influential,  both 
on  Voltaire’s  own  fortunes  and  on  the  public  intellect,  of  any 
of  his  works  written  for  the  most  part  in  England,  were  his 
‘ English  Letters  ’ or  the  ‘ Philosophical  Letters.’ 

They  were  originally  written  to  Theriot;  but  they  must 
always  have  been  meant  for  publication.  They  are  not  the  best 


Mt.  33-34]  ENGLAND,  & THE  ‘ ENGLISH  LETTERS  ’ 53 


example,  but  they  are  no  bad  example,  of  the  Voltairian  manner 
— polished,  easy,  witty,  sarcastic,  not  so  much  daring  in  word 
as  daring  in  meaning,  more  remarkable  for  what  they  imply  than 
for  what  they  say — yet  of  all  letters  in  the  world,  perhaps,  those 
which  have  had  the  most  far-reaching  as  well  as  the  profoundest 
effect  on  the  human  mind. 

Read  casually,  they  are  chiefly  remarkable  for  their  luminous 
and  amusing  criticisms  on  the  genius  of  England,  and  on  the 
men  and  events  of  that  day. 

Voltaire  found  Shakespeare  exactly,  after  all,  what  a Voltaire 
would  have  found  him — 4 nature  and  sublimity,’  ‘force  and 
fecundity,’  ‘an  amazing  genius’ — he  was  too  great  a genius 
himself  not  to  recognise  in  a Shakespeare  such  matchless  traits  as 
these.  But  Voltaire  was  also  an  eighteenth-century  Frenchman, 
with  his  dramatic  gift  pinioned  by  the  unities,  by  a hundred  prim, 
foolish,  and  artificial  rules,  and  he  was  the  writer  who  above  all 
other  writers  valued  style,  polish,  finish,  and  culture.  How 
should  he  have  forgiven  Shakespeare  what  he  called  his  ‘ heavy 
grossness,’  his  ‘ barbarisms,’  his  ‘ monstrosities  ’ ? Voltaire  did 
not  know,  with  the  moderns,  that  many  of  the  clowns  and  the 
clownish  jokes  to  which  he  took  a just  objection  were  interpola- 
tions, not  Shakespeare  himself.  And  what  wonder  that  this 
most  impressionable  child  of  a country  and  an  age  where  an 
abstraction  called  Taste  was  as  a god,  should  have  missed  its 
polite  influence  in  a Shakespeare,  and  have  found  the  rugged 
grandeur  of  that  vast  intelligence  imperfect  without  it  ? Not 
the  less,  it  was  Voltaire  who  first  revealed  this  man,  who  had 
been  ‘ the  ruin  of  the  English  stage,’  to  the  French  ; who  copied 
and  translated  him  ; and  then  abused  him  so  fiercely  in  the 
famous  preface  to  ‘ Semiramis  ’ and  the  quarrel  with  Letourneur, 
as  to  make  him  of  as  supreme  an  interest  on  the  Continent  as 
in  his  own  country. 

Voltaire  wrote  one  admirable  letter  ‘ On  Mr.  Pope  and  other 
famous  Poets,’  another  ‘ On  Comedy,’  a third  ‘ On  Tragedy,’  and 
a fourth  ‘ On  Nobles  who  cultivate  Literature.’  He  praised 
Swift ; adored  ‘ the  judicious  Mr.  Addison  ’ ; and  did  due  homage 
to  Wycherley  and  Congreve.  But  if  the  ‘ English  Letters  ’ had 
been  nothing  but  a series  of  literary  criticisms,  however  brilliant, 
they  would  not  have  been  the  Letters  which  made  Lafayette 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


54 


[1727-28 


a republican  at  nine,  and  which  Heine  spoke  of  as  a stepping- 
stone  to  the  Revolution. 

In  the  ‘ Henriade  ’ the  bird’s  heart  had  throbbed  against  the 
bars  of  the  cage  ; in  the  1 English  Letters  ’ it  had  found  the  gate 
of  liberty  and  taken  its  first  sweeping  flight  through  free  air. 

Voltaire  came  straight  from  the  Bastille  to  the  most  liberal 
and  enlightened  country  in  the  world.  What  wonder  that  he 
conceived  that  hero-worship  for  England  and  the  English  which 
no  time  could  change,  and  which  in  his  old  age  at  Ferney  was 
still  a burning  and  a shining  light  ? 

He  was  from  the  first  an  impassioned  admirer  of  almost  every 
Anglican  institution.  ‘ The  English,  as  a free  people,  chose  their 
own  road  to  heaven.’  4 You  do  not  see  any  imbeciles  here  who 
put  their  souls  into  the  keeping  of  others.’ 

‘ You  have  no  priests  then  ? ’ said  I.  ‘ No,  friend,’  answered 
the  Quaker ; ‘ and  we  get  on  very  well  without  them.’  ‘ When 
the  English  clergy  know  that  in  France  young  men  famous  for 
their  excesses  and  raised  to  the  prelature  by  the  intrigues  of 
women,  make  love  publicly,  amuse  themselves  by  composing  love 
songs,  give  every  day  elaborate  and  elegant  suppers  and  go  straight 
from  them  to  ask  the  illumination  of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  boldly 
call  themselves  successors  of  the  Apostles,  they  thank  God  that 
they  are  Protestants.  But  they  are  vile  heretics,  fit  for  burning 
with  all  devils,  as  Master  Fran<jois  Rabelais  said  ; that  is  why 
I do  not  mix  myself  up  with  their  affairs.’ 

The  last  touches  are  admirably  Voltairian. 

The  live-and-let-live  policy  of  a country  where  thirty  religions 
dwelt  together  quite  amicably  and  comfortably  could  not  but 
appeal  to  the  man  who  was  Armand’s  brother  and  who  re- 
membered Unigenitus. 

As  for  the  government — what  a contrast  he  saw  there  too  ! 
In  this  country  the  sovereign  was  only  powerful  to  do  good 
‘ with  his  hands  tied  from  doing  evil  ’ ; the  great  were  ‘ great 
without  insolence  and  without  vassals  ’ ; and  ‘ the  people  share 
in  the  government  without  disorder.’  What  a contrast  indeed  ! 
what  a glaring  contrast ! The  pen  trembled  in  the  man’s  nervous 
hand  as  he  wrote ; and  his  soul  was  on  fire.  ‘ It  has  taken  seas 
of  blood  to  drown  the  idol  of  despotism  ; but  the  English  do  not 
think  they  have  bought  their  laws  too  dearly.’  How  much  more 


iffiT.  33-34]  ENGLAND,  & THE  * ENGLISH  LETTERS  ’ 55 


dearly  France  was  to  buy  hers,  this  man,  who  himself  expended 
the  work  and  genius  of  his  life  to  gain  Frenchmen  a little  liberty, 
had  no  idea.  He  had  seen  Newton  buried  at  Westminster  with 
the  honours  due  to  so  great  a genius.  When  Voltaire  was  very 
old  it  is  said  ‘ his  eye  would  grow  bright  and  his  cheek  flush  ’ 
when  he  said  that  he  had  once  lived  in  a land  where  ‘ a professor 
of  mathematics,  only  because  he  was  great  in  his  vocation,’  had 
been  buried  1 like  a king  who  had  done  good  to  his  subjects.’ 

What  a country  to  live  in  ! to  be  proud  of ! where  there  were 
better  ways  to  glory  than  the  favour  of  a royal  mistress  or  the 
unearned  virtue  of  an  ancestral  name  ! 

He  saw  Mrs.  Oldfield,  the  actress,  buried  with  the  honours 
due  to  her  far  different  and  very  inferior  talent.  Perhaps  the 
honours  were  greater  than  her  desert.  But  Voltaire,  with  his 
passion  for  the  stage,  was  not  the  man  to  think  of  that. 

Thirty-five  years  later  he  recalled  hdw  he  had  heard  when  in 
England  that  the  daughter  of  the  poet  Milton  was  in  London — 
old,  ill,  and  poor.  ‘ In  a quarter  of  an  hour  she  was  rich.’ 

‘ What  would  you  have  done  if  you  had  been  born  in  Spain  ? ’ 
said  his  secretary  to  Voltaire  long  after.  ‘I  would  have  gone  to 
mass  every  day  : kissed  the  monks’  robes : and  set  fire  to  their 
convents.  I was  not  made  to  live  in  Spain,  nor  in  France.’ 

‘ Where  then  ? ’ 1 In  England.’ 

But  if  Voltaire  loved  the  tolerant  English  religion  and  the  >/' 
liberal  English  government  and  the  generous  English  people,  he 
loved  far  more  ‘ the  noble  liberty  of  thinking.’  His  Letters  on 
Bacon  and  on  Locke,  on  Descartes  and  Newton,  on  the  History 
of  Attraction  and  on  Newton’s  Optics,  are  a worship  of  that  free 
thought  that  dared  to  doubt,  that  searched  and  tried  the  old 
truths  which  men  believed  because  they  were  old  and  for  no 
better  reason,  and  which  found  them  too  often  to  be  no  truths, 
but  a prejudice,  a delusion,  and  a lie.  Voltaire  passionately 
declared  that  it  was  the  theologians,  and  not  the  Lockes,  the 
Bayles,  the  Hobbes,  the  Spinozas,  who  sowed  ‘discord  in  a state.’ 

He  spoke  of  Locke  as  1 the  wisest  of  human  beings  ’ ; of  Bacon 
as  ‘ the  father  of  experimental  philosophy.’  ‘ A catechism  reveals 
God  to  children,’  he  said ; ‘ but  Newton  has  revealed  Him  to 
sages.’  ‘ Before  Locke,  the  great  philosophers  had  positively 
decided  what  the  soul  of  man  is,  but  as  they  did  not  know  in  the 


56 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1728-29 


least,  it  is  only  natural  they  should  all  have  been  of  different 
opinions.  . . . Locke  dares  sometimes  to  speak  positively  but 
he  also  dares  to  doubt.’  ‘ How  I love  English  daring  ! ’ he  cried 
a propos  of  Swift’s  ‘ Tale  of  a Tub.’  ‘ How  I love  people  who 
say  what  they  think ! We  only  half  live  if  we  dare  only  half 
think.’ 

Voltaire  was  fully  alive  at  all  events.  However  widely  one 
may  differ  from  his  opinions  they  are  at  least  entitled  to  respect. 
They  were  passionately  genuine,  the  vivid  convictions  of  his 
soul.  He  was  no  dilettante , fine-gentleman  unbeliever — too 
bored  and  idle  to  find  in  the  world  ‘ the  footmarks  of  a God.’ 
He  was  from  this  time  henceforth  and  always  one  of  the  most 
zealous  seekers  after  truth  who  ever  lived.  It  was  to  be  no 
more  ‘ a fountain  sealed  ’ ; no  more  a luxury  for  a few,  but  the 
common  property  of  all.  To  free  Frenchmen  by  bringing  to 
them  the  light  and  knowledge  of  England — to  destroy,  so  far  as 
in  him  lay,  everywhere  and  for  all  men,  darkness,  ignorance  and 
superstition — that  was  the  Voltairian  mission.  ‘He  swore  to 
devote  his  life  to  that  end,  and  kept  his  word.’ 


-'•/4s 


Mt.  34-35] 


57 


CHAPTER  VI 

PLAYS,  A BURLESQUE,  AND  THE  APPEARANCE  OP  THE 
4 LETTERS  * 

In  the  middle  of  March  1729  there  was  a man  calling  himself 
M.  Sansons,  living  over  a wigmaker’s  at  St.  Germain-en-Laye. 
At  the  end  of  the  month  M.  Sansons  came  to  Paris,  and  lived 
for  a while  at  the  house  of  one  of  his  father’s  old  clerks.  Being 
so  advised  by  his  friends  he  applied  for  a warrant,  annulling  his 
order  of  exile.  He  obtained  it ; and  lo  ! M.  de  Voltaire,  after  an 
absence  of  nearly  three  years,  is  returned  from  his  English 
travels,  and  once  more  at  work  on  his  profession  in  the  capital. 

He  had  no  thought  at  present  of  bringing  out  those  4 English 
Letters.’  The  time  was  not  yet  ripe;  and  discretion  here, 
certainly,  was  the  better  part  of  valour.  He  applied  himself 
instead  to  his  ‘Charles  XII.’  He  spoke  of  it  himself  as  his 
favourite  work,  and  ‘ the  one  for  which  I have  the  bowels  of  a 
father/  Its  breathless  race  of  incident  swept  him  along,  and  he 
had  hardly  time  even  to  be  sociable.  Refusing  one  of  Theriot’s 
invitations  to  dinner  on  May  15,  he  said  that  he  would  drop  in  at 
the  end  of  the  entertainment  ‘ along  with  that  fool  of  a Charles 
XII.’  The  subject  engrossed  him,  as  the  subject  he  had  in  hand 
always  engrossed  him.  Then,  since  he  was  no  more  an  exile, 
he  set  to  work  with  Theriot  to  get  his  pensions  restored — and 
succeeded. 

One  night  when  he  was  out  at  supper  he  heard  talk  of  a 
lottery  formed  by  Desforts,  the  controller-general.  One  of  the 
guests  observed  that  anyone  who  took  all  the  tickets  in  the  lottery 
would  be  greatly  the  gainer.  Voltaire  was  as  swift  to  act  as  swift 
to  see.  He  formed  a company  who  bought  up  all  the  tickets  : 
and  found  himself  the  winner  of  a large  sum.  To  be  sure  he  had 
offended  Desforts,  who  was  thus  written  down  an  ass.  So  off 


58 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1729-30 


went  the  poet  to  Plombieres  with  Richelieu  in  August  for  a visit. 
When  he  returned  to  Paris  the  squall  had  blown  over,  and  M.  de 
Voltaire  had  made  an  uncommonly  successful  speculation. 

He  made  others,  too,  about  this  period,  and  never  again  was 
in  need  of  money. 

In  this  December  of  1729  Voltaire  invited  the  actors  of  the 
Comedie  Fran9aise  to  dinner  and  read  them  his  new  play, 
‘ Brutus/  It  was  accepted,  rehearsed,  and  then  suddenly  and 
mysteriously  withdrawn.  Voltaire  said  there  was  a plot  against 
it — a cabal  of  Rohan  and  his  kind,  and  of  Cr6billon — famous 
rival  playwright  and  gloomy  tragic  poet.  But  worse  than  any 
plot  was  the  feebleness  of  the  play  itself  and  its  fatal  absence  of 
love  interest.  The  actors  themselves  thought  it  unworthy  of  a 
Voltaire  and  his  public.  Voltaire  knew  it  to  be  so  himself,  and 
at  once  set  about  revising  and  rewriting  it. 

On  March  20,  1730,  there  died  after  four  days’  acute  anguish, 
aged  only  thirty-eight,  the  great  actress,  Adrienne  Lecouvreur. 
Her  death  was  the  supreme  event  of  this  period  of  Voltaire’s  life. 
Perhaps  it  was  one  of  the  supreme  events  of  his  whole  life.  He 
had  been,  he  said,  ‘ her  admirer,  her  friend,  her  lover.’  If  the 
last  word  is  to  be  taken  literally,  that  relationship  had  long 
ceased.  But  he  had  for  ever  a passionate  admiration  for  her 
talents.  The  last  piece  she  played  in  was  ‘ CEdipe,’  and  she  was 
taken  ill  upon  the  stage.  Voltaire,  with  his  quick  instinct  of  a 
passionate  pity,  hastened  to  her  bedside,  and  she  died  in  his  arms 
in  agonies  for  which  there  could  be  found  no  remedy.  She  was 
an  actress,  so  she  could  have  neither  priest  nor  absolution,  and 
dying  thus,  was  refused  Christian  burial,  and  taken  without  the 
city  at  night  and  ‘ thrown  in  the  kennel,’  like  a dead  dog. 

What  wonder  if  Paris  was  stirred  to  its  soul  ? And  if  Paris 
was  stirred,  what  must  a Voltaire  have  been  ? Adrienne,  it  has 
been  well  said,  had  ‘ all  the  virtues  but  virtue.’  She  was  generous 
and  disinterested  to  a high  degree.  She  was  a woman  of  supreme 
talent  and  achievements.  She  was  at  least  morally  no  worse, 
as  she  was  intellectually  far  greater,  than  those  kings’  mistresses 
over  whose  graves  prelates  had  thought  it  no  shame  to  lift  their 
voices  in  eulogies  and  orations,  and  who  had  been  buried  with 
royal  honours  and  splendour. 

In  Voltaire’s  mind  England  and  Mrs.  Oldfield’s  burial  were 


Mr.  35-36] 


PLAYS 


59 


still  fresh  impressions.  Injustice  had  begun  to  play  the  part 
with  him  that  the  lighted  torch  plays  to  the  faggot.  His  soul 
was  ablaze  at  once. 

It  is  not  fashionable  to  look  upon  him  as  a man  of  feeling. 
In  the  popular  idea  he  is  the  scoffer  who  jeered  at  everything. 
Read  the  4 Poem  on  the  Death  of  Adrienne  Lecouvreur  ’ written, 
not  on  the  passionate  impulse  of  the  moment,  but  many  months 
later,  and  see  in  it  a soul  stirred  to  its  profoundest  depths — the 
ebullition  of  a feeling  as  deep  as  it  is  rare. 

4 Shall  I for  ever  see  . . . the  lightminded  French  sleeping 
under  the  rule  of  superstition  ? What ! is  it  only  in  England 
that  mortals  dare  to  think  ? 

4 Men  deprive  of  burial  her  to  whom  Greece  would  have  raised 
altars.’  4 The  Lecouvreur  in  London  would  have  had  a tomb 
among  genius,  kings,  and  heroes.’  4 Ye  gods  ! Why  is  my 
country  no  longer  the  fatherland  of  glory  and  talent  ? ’ 

Such  words  were  enough  to  endanger  its  author’s  safety. 

It  was  well  that  when  Theriot  was  showing  them  about  the 
salons  of  Paris  in  June  1781,  Voltaire  was  living  incognito  in 
Rouen,  and  was  supposed  to  be  in  England. 

Paris  forgot ; but  not  Voltaire.  For  sixty  years  he  never 
ceased  to  try  and  improve  the  condition  of  actors.  Thirty  years 
after  Adrienne’s  death  he  wrote  as  if  it  had  happened  yesterday : 
4 Actors  are  paid  by  the  King  and  excommunicated  by  the  Church  ; 
they  are  commanded  by  the  King  to  play  every  evening,  and  by 
the  Church  forbidden  to  do  so  at  all.  If  they  do  not  play,  they 
are  put  into  prison  ; if  they  do,  they  are  spurned  into  the  kennel. 
We  delight  to  live  with  them,  and  object  to  be  buried  with  them ; 
we  admit  them  to  our  tables  and  exclude  them  from  our 
cemeteries.  It  must  be  allowed  we  are  a very  reasonable  and 
consistent  nation.’  In  his  old  age,  his  one  dread  was  not  the 
mysterious  Hereafter,  but  that  he  too,  dying  unabsolved,  might 
be  4 thrown  into  the  gutter  like  poor  Lecouvreur.’ 

By  the  spring  of  1780  4 Charles  XII.’  was  almost  ready  for 
the  press.  The  censor — its  satire  of  current  superstition  was  so 
very  delicate  the  good  man  had  not  noticed  it — passed  the  book. 

The  author  was  delighted,  and  was  more  than  busy  in  pre- 
paring a large  edition  of  the  first  volume  for  the  press. 

By  the  autumn  of  1730,  when  he  had  two  thousand  six 


60 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1730-31 


hundred  copies  on  the  eve  of  publication,  the  whole  edition  was 
suddenly  seized  by  the  paternal  government.  The  censor  had 
passed  it  ? True.  But  a change  in  the  political  outlook  made 
France  uncommonly  nervous  of  displeasing  Augustus,  the  usurp- 
ing King  of  Poland,  of  whom  Voltaire,  forsooth,  had  spoken 
disrespectfully.  ‘It  seems  to  me,’  he  wrote  very  reasonably, 

‘ that  in  this  country  Stanislas  [the  Queen’s  father  and  ex-King] 
ought  to  be  considered  rather  than  Augustus.’ 

It  is  easy  to  fancy  what  a maddening  irritation  such  a 
prohibition,  and  the  delays,  worries,  and  waste  of  time  it  caused, 
must  have  had  on  such  an  impatient  and  energetic  temperament 
as  Voltaire’s. 

But  he  never  gave  up  hope,  as  he  never  gave  up  work. 

On  December  11  of  this  year  1730  the  rewritten  ‘Brutus’ 
was  performed  : very  favourably  received  on  the  first  night — by 
an  audience  composed  entirely  of  the  author’s  friends — and 
damned  with  faint  praise  on  the  second.  The  author  had  quite 
enough  vanity  to  be  bitterly  mortified.  But,  not  the  less,  he 
wrote  the  kindest  and  most  considerate  of  letters  to  the  terrified 
ingenue  of  fifteen  who  had  played  one  of  the  chief  parts  hopelessly 
badly.  ‘ Ce  coquin-la,’  one  of  his  bitterest  enemies  said  of  him, 
‘ has  one  vice  worse  than  all  the  rest ; he  has  sometimes  virtues.’ 

The  last  performance  of  ‘ Brutus  ’ took  place  on  January  17, 
1781.  There  had  been  but  fifteen  in  all.  In  the  Revolution  it 
was  revived,  and  received  with  tumultuous  applause.  Its  motif , 
that  of  a father  sacrificing  his  sons  for  the  common  good,  appealed 
to  those  stirring  times  of  reckless  deeds,  but  not  to  the  cultivated 
and  sentimental  dolcefar  niente  of  1731. 

By  February,  Voltaire  was  writing  to  Cideville  at  Rouen  that 
the  new  edition  of  the  ‘ Henriade  ’ was  tacitly  permitted  in  Paris 
by  the  authorities.  While  they  had  been  busy  suppressing  it, 
those  authorities  had  also  been  busy  reading  and  admiring  it 
themselves.  Henceforth,  it  was  allowed  in  France. 

In  March,  M.  de  Voltaire  announced  his  intention  of  return- 
ing to  his  dear  England,  and  insinuated  that  he  was  going  to 
print  ‘ Charles  XII.’  at  ‘ Cantorbery.’  In  truth,  Cideville  had 
found  his  friend  ‘ a little  hole  ’ in  Rouen — a very  dirty  and 
uncomfortable  little  hole  as  it  turned  out — where  he  could  live 
incognito  and  superintend  the  secret  printing  and  publishing 


JEt.  36-37] 


PLAYS 


61 


there.  He  removed  from  the  first  little  hole  to  the  house  of  Jore, 
his  printer  and  publisher,  with  whom  he  was  to  have  only  too 
many  dealings  in  the  future.  He  passed  as  an  English  gentle- 
man. He  had  the  society  of  Cideville  to  console  him.  He  was 
five  months  in  Rouen  altogether,  from  the  March  of  1731  until 
the  August.  One  of  these  months  he  spent  in  bed.  Part  of  his 
time  he  Was  in  the  country.  The  whole  time  he  was  correcting 
the  proof-sheets  of  the  first  part  of  ‘ Charles  XII/  and  writing 
the  latter,  and  composing  two  tragedies — ‘ The  Death  of  Caesar  ’ 
and  ‘Eriphyle.’ 

He  returned  to  Paris  in  August  1731.  On  September  13  died 
the  noble  young  Maisons,  aged  only  thirty-one,  of  the  smallpox 
which  had  spared  him  before.  ‘ He  died  in  my  arms/  said 
Voltaire,  ‘ not  through  the  ignorance  but  through  the  neglect  of 
the  doctors/ 

In  October  the  secretly  printed  ‘ Charles  XII.’  was  introduced 
surreptitiously  into  Paris,  as  the  4 Henriade  ’ had  been.  Like  the 
‘ Henriade/  it  became  the  mode  and  was  read  by  all  the  educated 
classes ; and  soon,  in  translations,  by  the  educated  of  other 
countries  as  well. 

It  is  indeed  a bold  and  vigorous  story.  Plenty  of  anecdote 
and  action — a vivid  drama  wherein  the  characters  play  their  parts 
with  extraordinary  spirit  and  energy.  In  the  heat  of  so  many 
battles  the  author  has  no  time  for  reflections.  But  throughout, 
not  the  less,  he  shows  very  plainly  his  contempt  for  his  hero,  and 
his  love  for  all  those  strange  things — peace,  liberty,  enlighten- 
ment— which  that  hero  had  done  so  much  to  crush. 

Many  of  his  facts  he  had  obtained  firsthand  from  the  Duchess 
of  Marlborough,  who  remembered  her  husband’s  dealings  with 
Charles ; and  from  Baron  Goertz,  who  had  been  Charles’s 
favourite  minister  and  then  Voltaire’s  personal  friend. 

Voltaire,  as  has  been  seen,  loved  his  ‘ Charles  XII.’  himself ; 
and  as  usual  had^spared  nothing  to  make  it  as  good  as  he  could. 

‘ My  great  difficulty/  he  wrote,  ‘has  not  been  to  find  memoirs, 
but  to  sift  out  the  good  ones.  There  is  another  inconvenience 
inseparable  from  writing  contemporary  history.  Every  captain 
of  infantry  who  has  served  in  the  armies  of  Charles  XII.  and  lost 
his  knapsack  on  a march,  thinks  I ought  to  mention  it.  If  the 
subalterns  complain  of  my  silence,  the  generals  and  ministers 


62 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1731-32 


complain  of  my  outspokenness.  Whoso  writes  the  history  of  his 
own  time  must  expect  to  be  blamed  for  everything  he  has  said 
and  everything  he  has  not  said ; but  these  little  drawbacks  should 
not  discourage  a man  who  loves  truth  and  liberty,  expects  nothing, 
fears  nothing,  asks  nothing,  and  who  limits  his  ambition  to  the 
cultivation  of  letters.’ 

By  the  December  of  this  year  1731  Voltaire  was  staying 
with  a certain  gay  old  Comtesse  de  Fontaine  Martel  who  had  a 
house  in  the  Palais  Royal,  of  which  she  made  her  visitor  free,  as 
of  her  carriage,  her  opera-box,  and  her  fine  company. 

His  friendship  with  the  Bernieres  had  cooled  by  this  time. 
To  be  sure,  he  was  no  small  acquisition  to  this  corrupt  old 
Countess,  whose  one  aim  in  existence  was  to  be  amused  if  she 
could.  ‘ To  be  bored  near  Voltaire ! Ah,  Dieu ! that  is  not 
possible ! 5 said  an  enthusiastic  lady  admirer  hereafter.  He 
sonneted  his  hostess  now,  as  only  he  knew  how— delicate,  grace- 
ful, French,  delightful.  ‘ Eriphyle  ’ was  performed  at  her  house 
very  early  in  1732.  The  guests  were  much  too  polite  not  to  sob 
at  its  pathos  and  applaud  it  to  the  echo. 

On  March  7,  1732,  it  was  played  to  a public  who  received  it 
with  a very  tepid  warmth ; until  the  fifth  act,  of  which  they 
unmistakably  disapproved.  1 One  forgives  the  dessert  when  the 
other  courses  have  been  passable,’  Voltaire  wrote  cheerily  to 
Cideville.  But  one  of  his  critics  was  not  far  from  the  truth 
when  he  said  that  if  it  had  not  been  for  its  hits  at  the  great,  at 
princes,  and  at  superstition,  it  would  have  had  nothing  of  Voltaire 
in  it  at  all. 

It  was  dull ; and  Voltaire  knew  it.  He  employed  the  Easter 
holidays  in  writing  a very  good  prologue  to  it.  But  if  a bad 
dessert  cannot  spoil  a good  dinner,  a good  hors  d’wuvre  will  not 
save  a bad  one.  On  May  13  Voltaire  wrote  to  Theriot  that  he 
was  resolved  not  even  to  print  it,  and  it  was  withdrawn  from 
Jore’s  hands  at  the  last  moment.  Some  of  its  material  was  used 
in  ‘ Semiramis.’ 

The  author  of  4 CEdipe,’  of  the  ‘ Henriade,’  and  of  ‘ Charles 
XII.’  had  already  not  unnaturally  turned  his  thoughts  to  that 
mistress  who  was  the  object  of  all  literary  men’s  hopes,  vows,  and 
adorations — the  French  Academy.  By  December  1731  there  was 
a vacant  chair  there.  Who  had  a right  to  it  if  not  he  ? He  was 


JEt.  37-38] 


PLAYS 


63 


almost  forty  years  old.  He  had  already  done  great  things ; he 
was  ripe  to  do  greater.  Even  the  authorities  could  not  be  blind 
to  his  deserts  and  to  his  powers.  Richelieu  was  his  friend,  and 
used  all  his  influence  to  help  him.  The  thing  was  as  good  as 
done,  when  by  secret  malice,  or  very  ill  fortune,  there  appeared  in 
print  in  the  spring  of  1782  that  luckless  4 Epistle  to  Uranie,’ 
written  ten  years  earlier  to  that  fair  travelling  companion, 
Madame  de  Rupelmonde. 

There  is  nothing  in  that  poem  but  its  grace,  cleverness,  and 
sincerity  which  would  excite  comment  if  it  appeared  in  a 
magazine  to-day.  Voltaire  had  called  it  ‘ Le  Pour  et  le  Contre,’ 
but  it  was  certainly  much  more  against  revealed  religion  than  for 
it.  Yet  it  is  in  no  sense  offensively  anti-Christian.  It  is  not  the 
poem  of  a scoffer,  but  of  one  who  seeks  truth  diligently  and 
‘ gropes  through  darkness  up  to  God.’ 

The  fact  did  not  soften  the  authorities  in  the  least. 

‘ What  do  you  think  of  it  ? ’ said  the  Chancellor  of  France  to 
his  secretary. 

‘ Voltaire  ought  to  be  deprived  of  pen,  ink,  and  paper,’  was 
the  answer.  ‘ That  man  has  a mind  which  could  destroy  a 
state.’ 

‘Uncertain  Uranie’  had  before  this  solved  her  doubts  by 
going  into  a convent.  Her  mentor  saw  but  one  course  open  to 
him.  It  was  a very  characteristic  course — and  used  by  him 
afterwards  very  freely.  He  denied  the  authorship  of  the  ill- 
omened  little  work  in  toto ; and,  true  to  his  principles  of  doing 
everything  thoroughly,  declared  that  the  Abbe  Chaulieu  was  the 
writer  thereof,  and  that  he  (Voltaire)  had  heard  him  recite  it  at 
the  Temple. 

Nobody  believed  the  story,  it  appears.  At  any  rate,  the 
Academy  doors  remained  closed  to  him. 

Many  worldly-wise  old  friends  of  Voltaire’s — Fontenelle  and 
Madame  de  Tencin  among  others — took  the  opportunity  of  the 
failure  of  ‘ Eriphyle  ’ to  beg  him  about  this  time  to  give  up  that 
dramatic  career  for  which  he  was  evidently  unsuited. 

‘ What  answer  did  you  make  ? ’ someone  said  to  him. 

‘ None  ; I brought  out  “ Zaire.”  ’ 

‘ Zaire  ’ was  written  in  twenty-two  days. 

‘ The  subject  carried  me  away  with  it ; the  piece  wrote  itself.’ 


64 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1732-33 


It  is  a tragedy  full  of  love  and  pathos,  which  still  in  some  degree 
keeps  its  popularity.  It  has  been  ably  criticised  as  being  not  the 
best  of  Voltaire’s  tragedies,  but  the  most  inspired.  It  reads  as  if 
its  author  were  a lover  of  five-and-twenty — quick  with  the  emo- 
tions he  describes.  6 Whoso  paints  the  passions  has  felt  them/ 
he  said  himself.  What  an  unknown  Voltaire  1 the  tender  Zaire  ’ 
must  have  revealed  to  his  friends  ! It  was  his  first  real  dramatic 
success  since  ‘ GEdipe.’  It  was  a greater  success  than  * (Edipe  ’ 
had  been.  At  the  first  performance,  indeed,  on  August  6,  1782, 
the  pit  was  somewhat  noisy,  and  vociferously  called  attention  to 
defects  arising  from  hasty  writing.  But,  after  all,  the  play  moved 
the  heart.  At  the  fourth  performance  the  author  was  called  from 
his  box  to  receive  the  unanimous  plaudits  of  the  house.  He  him- 
self wrote  a notice  of  the  play  in  the  ‘ Mercure  ’ — the  first  time 
such  a thing  had  ever  been  done.  On  October  14  it  was  played 
before  the  King  and  Queen  at  Fontainebleau.  It  brought  its 
author  much  of  what  he  called  ‘ that  smoke  of  vainglory  ’ for 
which  he  had  written  1 Eriphyle  ’ and  ‘ Brutus  ’ all  over  again, 
and  in  vain.  He  himself  superintended  the  performance.  He 
was  at  Court  six  weeks.  ‘ Mariamne  * was  also  performed  ; and 
the  ‘ Gustave  ’ of  that  rival  playwright,  Alexis  Piron,  was  not . 
Voltaire  met  Piron  at  Court  one  day.  ‘ Ah  ! my  dear  Piron,  what 
are  you  doing  here  ? I have  been  here  three  weeks.  The  other 
night  they  played  my  “ Mariamne  ” ; they  are  going  to  play 
“ Zaire.”  How  about  “ Gustave  ” ? * Bitter  Piron  himself  tells 
the  story.  It  does  not  sound  like  truth.  An  enemy’s  ill-luck 
nearly  always  killed  the  Voltairian  spite  at  a blow.  But  if  it  be 
true,  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  this  cool,  witty  Arouet,  the  son 
of  the  notary,  was  not  precisely  popular.  While  at  Court  he 
rewrote  his  ‘ English  Letters  ’ on  ‘ Newton  ’ and  ‘ Gravitation  ’ ; 
read  aloud  to  Cardinal  Fleury,  with  a few  judicious  omissions, 
that  one  on  the  Quakers,  and  corresponded  with  a man  who  was 
now  his  scientific  teacher  and,  to  be,  his  admired  friend  and  his 
bitter  enemy.  His  name  was  Maupertuis. 

When  Voltaire  had  returned  to  his  comfortable  quarters  at  the 
Palais  Royal, 4 Zaire  ’ was  acted  there  by  amateurs  in  January  1783. 
Voltaire  himself  took  the  part  of  Lusignan,  the  heroine’s  father, 
in  spite  of  his  health,  which  was  so  bad  that  ‘ I dread  being 
reduced  to  idleness,  which  to  me  would  be  a terrible  disgrace.’ 


JEt.  38-39] 


A BURLESQUE 


65 


In  that  very  same  month  of  January  the  Comtesse  de  Fontaine 
Martel  died  very  suddenly.  She  had  her  card  parties  and  her 
salon  to  the  last.  She  was  quite  old,  wicked,  godless,  charming 
and  generous,  a perfect  type  of  her  class  and  her  age.  Voltaire 
was  at  her  bedside  when  she  died.  ‘ What  time  is  it  ? ' she  asked 
with  her, last  breath.  Before  she  could  be  answered — ‘ Thank 
God ! 1 said  she,  * whatever  time  it  is,  there  is  somewhere  a 
rendezvous.’ 

Voltaire  said  that  he  lost,  by  her  death,  a good  house  of  which 
he  was  the  master,  and  an  income  of  forty  thousand  francs  which 
was  spent  in  amusing  him. 

He  stayed  on  in  her  house  for  some  time.  He  was  there  when 
there  swept  over  him  one  of  the  noisiest  hurricanes  of  all  his 
stormy  existence. 

In  1731  that  envious  old  exiled  J.  B.  Rousseau  had  circulated 
in  Paris  a very  venomous  letter  on  the  subject  of  Voltaire.  The 
brilliant  success  of  * Zaire  ' was  the  signal  for  him  to  attack  it 
with  fury.  The  criticism  was  so  manifestly  unjust  and  so  mani- 
festly dictated  by  jealousy,  that  Voltaire  might  have  been  well 
content  to  leave  it  alone.  But  almost  the  only  thing  he  could 
not  do  was  to  do  nothing.  So  he  wrote  ‘ The  Temple  of  Taste/ 

I The  Temple  of  Taste  * is  a brilliant  burlesque,  half  prose, 
half  verse.  Pope's  ‘ Dunciad  * is  the  only  English  poem  with 
which  it  can  be  compared.  Its  story  is  that  Cardinal  Fleury  and 
the  poet  go  together  to  the  ‘ Temple  of  Taste ' criticising  every 
foible  of  the  age  on  their  way  there.  Near  the  entrance  they 
meet  the  candidates  for  admission  to  the  ‘ Temple,'  great  among 
whom  is  J.  B.  Rousseau. 

II  he  ‘ Temple  ' is  one  of  the  most  graceful  and  easy  of  the 
works  of  an  author  who  always  possessed  those  two  qualities 
in  an  extraordinary  degree.  It  shows,  as  no  other  writing  of 
Voltaire’s  had  yet  shown,  his  delicate  and  perfect  critical  judg- 
ment. He  expresses  his  damning  opinion — so  gaily,  so  charm- 
ingly, so  innocently — on  many  other  over-rated  celebrities  besides 
Rousseau.  The  piquancy  of  the  thing  lies  in  the  fact  that  three- 
fourths  of  those  celebrities  were  then  living.  It  hits  off  every 
passing  craze.  Every  line  contains  a deadly  allusion.  Every 
other  word  is  a mot  almost.  No  translation  can  give  any  idea  of 
the  full  and  deadly  effect  of  that  easy,  trifling,  bantering  style. 

F 


66  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1733 

‘ The  Temple  of  Taste  * is  a flame  which  still  leaps  and  shines, 
though  it  burns  no  more. 

By  February  4 the  Temple/  wrote  its  builder,  ‘had  become 
a Cathedral.’  In  April  it  was  in  the  hands  of  the  censor. 
Voltaire  quite  expected  to  be  given  a privilege  for  it.  The 
censor  did  not  seem  to  see  anything  objectionable  in  it. 

It  is  easy  to  fancy  what  a success  a work  so  gay,  witty,  and 
daring  would  meet  with,  when  it  dropped  red-hot  from  the  press, 
while  it  was  still  in  the  hands  of  the  authorities  awaiting  the 
coveted  yellow  seal.  If  it  was  a cathedral,  it  was  one  which 
afforded  the  author  no  sanctuary.  The  old  dangers  and  the  old 
outcries,  to  which  he  should  have  been  getting  wearily  used  by 
now,  met  him  as  usual.  There  was  a threatened  lettre  de  cachet . 

‘ Here  is  little  villain  of  a writer  who  ought  to  be  sent  over  the 
sea  again,*  said  Marais. 

All  Paris  was  up  in  arms  in  fact.  ‘ This  “ Temple  of  Taste  ** 
has  roused  those  whom  I have  not  praised  enough  for  their  liking,* 
Voltaire  wrote  to  Theriot  on  May  1,  ‘ and  still  more  those  whom  I 
have  not  praised  at  all  . . . add  to  that  the  crime  of  having  printed 
this  bagatelle  without  a permission,  and  the  anger  of  the  minister 
against  such  an  outrage  ; add  to  that  the  howlings  of  the  Court 
and  the  menace  of  a lettre  de  cachet , and,  with  all,  you  will  have 
but  a feeble  idea  of  the  pleasantness  of  my  position  and  of  the 
protection  afforded  to  literature.* 

‘ I must  then  rebuild  a second  Temple,*  he  added  cheerfully ; 
and  he  positively  set  to  work  to  do  it,  missing  out  some  of  the 
stones  of  offence  in  the  first. 

On  May  15  he  left  the  late  Countess  Martel’s  comfortable 
house  and  went  to  live  at  the  mean  lodging  of  his  man  of 
business — ‘ in  the  worst  quarter  of  Paris  in  the  worst  house  * — 
opposite  the  Church  of  St.  Gervais.  ‘ The  place  is  more  deafened 
with  the  sound  of  bells  than  a sacristan,*  said  he,  ‘ but  I shall 
make  so  much  noise  with  my  lyre  the  bells  will  be  nothing 
to  me.* 

One  hardly  knows  whether  to  admire  more  the  man’s  admirable 
indifference  to  things  material,  or  that  genius  for  hard  work  which 
stood  him  in  as  good  stead  in  a garret  as  in  a palace. 

He  was  not  long  alone  in  these  rooms.  He  soon  had  with 
him  two  literary  proteges  whom  he  fed,  lodged,  and  entertained 


JEn.  39] 


A BURLESQUE 


67 


‘ like  my  own  children.*  One  of  them,  Lefevre,  died  young. 
For  the  other,  Linant,  Voltaire  had  done  his  very  best  to  get  the 
good  offices  of  Madame  de  Fontaine  Martel.  But  that  worldly- 
wise  old  person,  who  had  already  been  much  tried  by  friend 
Theriot,  declined  to  accommodate  Linant  in  her  house.  Then 
Voltaire  besought  Madame  du  Defend  for  him. 

The  proteges  were  always  going  to  do  great  things  and  never 
did  them.  Voltaire  believed  in  them  exactly  as  devout  and  simple 
persons  will  long  believe  in  the  reclamation  of  the  irreclaimable. 
‘ I am  persuaded,*  he  had  said  in  that  ‘ Temple  of  Taste,’  ‘ that  if 
a man  does  not  cultivate  a talent  it  is  because  he  does  not  possess 
it ; there  is  no  one  who  does  not  write  poetry  if  he  is  a poet ; 
or  music,  if  he  is  a musician.’  But  his  heart  was  softer  than  his 
judgment.  Now,  as  later,  he  believed  in  the  capacity  as  in  the 
generosity  of  his  fellows,  with  an  enthusiasm  which  outlasted 
experience,  and  wholly  contradicts  the  gay  cynicism  of  his 
utterances. 

On  July  3,  1733,  there  is  a little  innocent,  ominous  sentence 
in  a letter  of  Voltaire’s  to  Cideville.  ‘ Yesterday  I began  an 
epistle  in  verse  on  Calumny,  dedicated  to  a very  amiable  and 
much  calumniated  woman.’  That  nameless  lady,  who  had 
Voltaire’s  Richelieu  for  a lover,  had  already  written  to  Richelieu 
highly  praising  Voltaire’s  new  play,  ‘ Adelaide  du  Guesclin.’  In 
this  July  she,  a certain  Comte  de  Forcalquier  and  a gay  young 
duchess,  paid  a surprise  visit  to  Voltaire  in  his  dingy  lodging, 
which  occasioned  the  poet  to  break  into  charming  verse  and  to 
compare  his  guests  to  the  three  angels  who  visited  Abraham. 
The  summer  also  saw  him  busy  buying  pictures,  writing  an  opera, 
‘Samson,’  to  music  by  Rameau,  and  rewriting  his  ‘Adelaide.* 
It  was  to  have  been  performed  in  the  April  of  this  1733,  but  the 
illness  of  the  chief  actress  delayed  its  appearance,  and  gave  the 
author  more  time  to  correct  and  improve  it. 

But  paramount  in  his  mind  to  any  opera  and  tragedy,  aye,  to 
any  amiable  and  calumniated  woman  of  fashion  too,  was  his 
haunting  fear,  which  never  left  him  all  through  this  year,  that 
the  ‘ English  Letters,’  which  were  being  printed  at  Rouen  privately 
and  under  his  own  supervision,  should  slip  out  and  become  public 
property  before  he  gave  the  signal  at  what  he  took  to  be  the 
psychological  moment.  By  July  they  were  already  published  in 


68 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1733-34 


England — free  England  who  received  them  with  delight.  6 The 
Letters  philosophical,  political,  critical,  poetical,  heretical,  and 
diabolical  are  selling  in  English  in  London  with  great  success.* 
But  here  ? 

The  outcries  against  ‘ The  Temple  of  Taste  * were  still  loud 
and  vehement.  Voltaire’s  terror  lest  ‘our  incorrect  Jore’  should 
play  him  false  with  regard  to  this  far  more  dangerous  work, 
vibrates  passionately  in  every  letter  of  the  period  he  wrote. 

‘ These  cursed  Letters,’  he  called  them.  They  were  damned  on 
their  reputation  alone  in  Paris,  before  anyone  had  seen  them.  It 
is  almost  impossible  now  to  believe  that  any  government  should 
have  thought  it  dangerous  to  the  state  and  its  citizens  to  under- 
stand the  theory  of  gravitation  or  the  principles  of  light.  But, 
after  all,  those  authorities  were  not  such  fools  as  they  looked. 
Once  allow  the  people  to  reason,  and  the  Bourbon  dynasty  would 
fall  like  a pack  of  cards. 

The  author  had  already  toned  down  some  of  his  freer 
utterances.  But  he  could  never  tone  the  free  soul  which  breathed 
in  them. 

He  had  ‘ a mortal  aversion  to  prison,’  he  wrote.  He  had  a 
reason,  a stronger  reason  than  he  had  ever  had  in  his  life,  for 
wishing  to  remain  quietly  in  France.  But  speak  his  message  to 
the  world  he  must.  ‘ The  more  liberty  one  has,  the  more  one 
wants.’  He  had  tasted  of  that  deep  nectar  of  the  gods,  and  his 
countrymen  must  drink  of  it  with  him.  He  feared  his  gay 
manner  of  conveying  grave  truth  would  offend.  ‘ If  I had  not 
lightened  matter,  nobody  would  have  been  scandalised  ; but  then 
nobody  would  have  read  me.’ 

The  vif  and  anxious  author  paid  Jore  and  worried  him  freely 
enough.  And  then  he  tried  to  propitiate  the  fickle  French  public, 
as  he  had  propitiated  it  before,  by  a play.  On  January  18,  1784, 
was  performed  the  long-delayed  ‘ Adelaide  du  Guesclin.’  The 
first  act  was  received  with  hisses,  which  redoubled  in  the  second. 
In  the  fifth,  the  ruin  was  completed  by  one  of  those  mots  at 
which  a Parisian  parterre  is  only  too  apt.  On  the  second  evening 
Voltaire  spoke  of  himself  as  attending  Adelaide’s  funeral.  One 
critic,  indeed,  and  no  mean  critic,  had  found  the  play  ‘ tender,  noble, 
and  touching.*  But  then  that  critic  already  looked  on  Voltaire 
with  eyes  more  than  friendly.  ‘ Adelaide,’  far  from  smoothing 


^Et.  39-40]  APPEARANCE  OF  THE  ‘ LETTERS 


69 


the  way  for  the  ‘ Letters,’  was  but  another  stumbling  stone 
in  it. 

Then  the  versatile  Voltaire,  at  once  a friend  and  a notary’s 
son,  must  needs  arrange  personally  for  the  marriage  of  his  friend 
Richelieu  to  Mademoiselle  de  Guise. 

To  be  sure,  Richelieu  was  amant  volage  if  ever  man  was  ; but 
he  took  Mademoiselle  without  a dot , and  the  manners  of  the  time 
were  such  that  neither  husband  nor  wi£e  would  in  any  case  have 
expected  fidelity  of  the  other.  Voltaire  left  for  Montjeu,  near 
Autun,  the  residence  of  the  bride’s  parents,  on  April  7.  ‘ I have 

drawn  up  the  contract,  so  I shall  not  write  any  verses,’  said  he. 
But  he  did  his  duty  all  the  same  a few  days  after,  and  composed 
an  ‘ Epithalamium.’  The  bridegroom  left  shortly  to  join  his 
regiment.  Among  the  wedding  guests  was  that  old  love  of 
Richelieu’s,  the  tender  critic  of  4 Adelaide,’  ‘ the  most  amiable  and 
calumniated  of  women,’ Emilie  de  Breteuil,  Marquise  du  Chatelet. 
Between  composing  love  verses  for  the  newly  married  pair,  and 
perhaps  some  on  his  own  account,  Voltaire  enjoyed  a brief 
holiday,  idle  and  content.  Then  the  storm  burst  in  such  a 
clap  of  thunder  as  had  never  shaken  even  his  world  before. 

By  April  24,  1784,  the  ‘ English  Letters  ’ had  appeared  with- 
out the  slightest  warning  to  the  author  and  with  his  name  on 
the  title-page,  and  were  running  through  Paris  like  a firebrand. 
Appended  was  his  Letter  on  the  ‘ Thoughts  of  Pascal,’  in  which 
he  had  dared  to  doubt  the  omniscience  and  infallibility  of  that 
thinker,  and  which  he  had  done  his  best  to  suppress  altogether. 
Jore  was  thrown  into  the  Bastille.  The  book  was  denounced. 
On  June  10  it  was  publicly  burnt  in  Paris  by  the  hangman  as 
‘ scandalous,  contrary  to  religion,  to  morals,  and  respect  for 
authority.’  Voltaire’s  lodging  in  the  capital  was  searched.  When 
the  officer  arrived  to  arrest  him  at  Montjeu  on  May  11  he  was 
told  that  he  had  gone  five  days  earlier,  that  is,  on  May  6,  1784, 
to  drink  the  waters  of  Lorraine,  not  yet  a French  possession. 

But  in  reality  Voltaire  was  making  his  way  quietly  to  the 
Chateau  of  Cirey-sur-Blaise,  in  Champagne,  a country  home  of 
the  Marquis  and  the  Marquise  du  Chatelet. 


70 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1734 


CHAPTER  VII 

MADAME  DU  CHATELET 

In  1706  there  was  born  one  Emilie,  the  daughter  of  the  Baron  de 
Breteuil.  Emilie  grew  up  into  a tall  slip  of  a girl  with  very  long 
legs,  very  bright  eyes,  very  little  grace,  and  a great  deal  of 
intelligence.  She  was  about  eight  years  old,  and  presumably 
living  in  Paris  with  her  parents,  when  she  saw  one  day,  possibly 
at  the  house  of  Caumartin,  that  lean-faced  scapegrace,  Francis 
Marie  Arouet,  of  twenty.  Arouet  was  not  yet  out  of  love  with 
Pimpette  Dunoyer.  Emilie  was  a child  who  ought  to  have  been 
thinking  about  games  and  dolls  and  was  thinking,  with  a quite 
undesirable  precocity,  of  lessons  and  learning.  The  meeting 
made  not  the  slightest  impression  on  either  of  them.  Arouet 
went  on  climbing  the  steep  and  rugged  way  that  leads  to  glory. 
Emilie  learnt  Latin  and  Italian,  devoted  herself  to  the  Muses, 
and  at  fifteen  began  to  write  a versified  translation  of  the  ‘ -33neid.’ 

In  the  eighteenth  century  learning  was  a mode  among  women 
which  they  put  on  exactly  as  they  put  powder  on  their  hair  and 
patches  on  their  cheeks.  They  talked  philosophy  as  charmingly 
as  they  had  once  talked  chiffons.  They  sentimentalised  over  the 
Rights  of  Men,  neglected  their  children  and  treated  their  servants 
like  dogs.  Culture  was  hardly  a pose  with  them,  as  it  has  been 
with  less  clever  women  since,  but  it  was  a garment  which  they 
wore  when  and  as  they  chose.  There  have  been  few  women  in 
any  age  ‘ devoted  from  all  eternity  to  the  exact  sciences,’ 
impassioned  for  learning  for  learning’s  sake,  capable  of  that  keen 
delight  in  the  discovery  of  a new  truth  which  is  like  the  delight 
of  the  sportsman  when  he  has  run  his  quarry  to  earth.  There  were 
few  such  women  even  in  the  eighteenth  century.  But  there  were 
some : and  Emilie  de  Breteuil  was  one  of  them. 

She  was  married  at  nineteen  to  the  Marquis  du  Chatelet.  It 


MADAME  DU  CHATELET. 

From  an  Engraving  after  Marianne  Loir. 


Mt.  40] 


MADAME  DU  CHATELET 


71 


was  hardly  even  an  episode  in  her  career.  This  bonhomme  was 
so  stupid  and  so  earthy  ! Madame  always  appears  to  have  agreed 
with  him  well  enough.  But  there  were  so  many  other  things  to 
think  about ! First  of  all,  there  was  a Marquis  de  Guebriant. 
When  he  was  false,  his  vehement  young  mistress  took  so  much 
opium  that  she  would  have  died,  but  for  his  timely  assistance. 
The  brilliant  Duke  of  Richelieu  became  her  lover  presently  : and 
she  wore  his  portrait  in  a ring  and  loved  him,  temporarily,  but 
sincerely  enough,  and  exacted  from  him,  if  this  girlish  Marquise 
was  anything  at  all  like  a later  Madame  du  Chatelet,  a quite 
extraordinary  amount  of  attention  and  devotion.  Pretty  early  in 
her  career  she  became  addicted  to  that  modish  pastime,  gaming. 
She  played  on  the  spinet  and  sang  to  it.  She  loved  dress  and 
had  a very  bad  taste  in  it.  She  loved  society  and  talked  in  it 
much  and  brilliantly.  She  was  an  amateur  actress  of  no  mean 
ability.  She  had  three  children  who  interfered  with  her  scheme 
of  life  not  at  all  and  on  whom  she  seems  to  have  wasted  none 
of  that  effervescent  emotion  she  felt  for  her  lovers.  There  are 
many  strange  portraits  in  the  great  gallery  of  eighteenth-century 
France  before  the  Revolution,  but  no  one  stranger  than  that  of 
this  bony,  long-limbed  woman,  whose  flashing  intelligence  made 
her  harsh-featured  face  almost  beautiful,  who  was  familiar  with 
Horace  and  Virgil,  with  Cicero,  Tasso  and  Ariosto,  with  Locke, 
with  Newton  and  with  Euclid — a philosopher  with  a passion  for 
metaphysics— a being  at  once  excitable  and  sensual,  who  united 
to  an  entire  lack  of  the  moral  sense,  intellectual  passions  the 
most  pure  and  sincere  that  ever  raised  a woman  above  the  petti- 
ness, the  backbitings,  and  the  meannesses  common  to  her  sex. 

In  1731,  before  Voltaire  knew  her  personally,  her  learned 
reputation  had  reached  him  and  he  had  written  her  some  lines  on 
the  Epic  Poets.  To  1732  belongs  an  ‘ Ode  on  Fanaticism/  also 
addressed  to  the  ‘ charming  and  sublime  Emilie.’ 

Early  in  1733,  when  Madame  was  seven-and-twenty  years  old, 
studying  mathematics  under  Maupertuis,  one  of  the  courtiers  of 
the  Duchesse  du  Maine  at  Sceaux  reintroduced  her  to  Voltaire, 
famous  and  forty.  Then,  with  her  modish  Duchess  and  Marquis 
as  chaperons,  she  visited  him  in  his  rooms.  It  took  the  man  but 
a very  little  while  to  recognise  in  her  a kindred  passion  for  that 
noblest  liberty,  enlightenment ; to  see  reflected  in  her  his  own 


72 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1734 


genius  for  hard  work  ; to  find  out  that  she  too  was  tired  of  this 
Paris  ‘ at  once  idle  and  stormy  ’ and  would  fain  find  a life  where 
there  should  be  more  of  the  gods’  best  gift — time — to  think,  to 
write,  to  speak  one’s  message  for  the  benefit  of  that  world  which 
must  listen  at  last. 

He  had  soon  written  her  an  Epistle  on  her  scientific  connection 
with  Maupertuis,  as  well  as  that  one  dated  1738,  to  the  * respectable 
Emilie,’  on  Calumny. 

By  August  14,  1733,  he  was  writing  to  his  dear  Cideville 
6 You  are  Emilie  in  a man  and  she  is  Cideville  in  a woman : ’ and 
a few  days  later  to  the  Abbe  de  Sade  giving  his  brilliant  first 
impressions  of  his  Marquise.  In  November  he  was  writing  to 
Sade  again,  proudly  telling  him  how  Emilie  had  learnt  English 
in  a fortnight. 

Then  she  was  with  him  at  Richelieu’s  wedding.  Far  from 
finding  the  situation  embarrassing,  she  was  in  heaven,  she  said — 
until  the  fear  of  Voltaire’s  arrest,  and  the  news  that  it  would  not 
be  safe  for  him  to  remain  in  France  made  her  discover  that  men 
were  insupportable.  ‘ I shall  retire  at  once  to  my  chateau,’  she 
added.  For  her  Chateau  of  Cirey  was  on  the  extreme  edge  of 
France  ; on  the  borders  of  Lorraine,  and  but  a stone’s  throw 
from  safety. 

Its  position  thus  decided  two  destinies. 

Of  what  did  Voltaire  think  as  he  fled  from  Montjeu  through 
the  pleasant,  budding  country  on  those  spring  days,  towards  that 
desolate  spot  he  was  to  make  famous  ? The  Marquise  was  not 
with  him.  She  was  going  to  Paris  to  use  her  noble  name  and 
influence  at  Versailles  to  obtain  the  revocation  of  that  horrible 
lettre  de  cachet . Voltaire  was  already  her  lover  ; though  he  was 
not  now,  any  more  than  he  was  hereafter,  in  love  with  her.  He 
had  a boundless  and  most  generous  admiration  for  her  talents  — 
the  warmest  enthusiasm  for  her  whom  he  called  ‘ a great  man 
whose  only  fault  was  being  a woman.’  He  was  indeed. as  faithful 
to  her  person  as  he  was  faithful  to  his  belief  in  her  great  in- 
tellectual gifts.  She  was  for  ever  his  ideal  of  feminine  erudition — 

4 who  listens  to  Virgil,  and  Tasso,  and  does  not  disdain  a game 
of  picquet,’  ‘who  understands  Newton  and  loves  verses  and  the 
wine  of  Champagne  as  you  do  ’ — the  sorceress  whose  charms 
worked  all  their  magic  on  his  mind,  but  never  touched  his  heart. 


jEt.  40] 


MADAME  DU  CHATELET 


73 


To  be  at  once  a great  creative  genius  and  capable  of  an  all- 
absorbing  love  passion  is  given  to  few  men.  It  was  not  given  to 
Voltaire.  No  doubt,  as  his  carriage  jolted  along  the  roads  under 
the  May  sunshine  towards  quiet,  peace,  and  safety,  he  honestly 
supposed  himself  to  be  devotedly  in  love  with  his  1 divine  Emilie.’ 
He  had  chosen  her  to  be  the  companion  of  life.  Those  eight 
volumes  of  his  letters  to  her,  which  were  destroyed  at  her  death, 
were  very  likely  in  some  sort  the  letters  of  a lover ; but,  arguing 
from  the  known  to  the  unknown,  they  must  have  been  the  letters 
of  the  lover  who  worshipped  his  mistress’s  scientific  acquirements, 
her  passion  for  knowledge  and  her  matchless  intellectual  industry, 
a thousand  times  more  than  any  qualities  of  her  heart  and  soul. 

By  May  23,  1784,  Voltaire  was  at  Bale  and  writing  from  there 
to  Madame  du  Deffand.  She,  as  well  as  Madame  du  Chatelet, 
was  doing  her  best  to  get  him  back  into  ministerial  favour.  They 
were  of  the  opinion  that  the  usual  disavowal  would  be  the  best 
thing.  Very  well!  1 1 will  declare  that  Pascal  was  always 
right  . . . that  all  priests  are  disinterested  : that  the  Jesuits  are 
honest  . . . that  the  Inquisition  is  the  triumph  of  humanity  and 
tolerance  : in  fact  I will  say  anything  they  like,  if  they  will  but 
leave  me  in  peace.’  Of  course,  no  one  could  believe  the  disavowal. 
But  they  could  pretend  they  believed  it.  Madame  du  Chatelet 
worker  harder  than  ever  among  her  influential  friends  and,  when 
her  mind  grew  easier  respecting  her  lover,  continued  her  lessons 
from  Maupertuis.  She  spent  the  summer  at  Versailles.  The 
government  no  doubt  had  never  been  very  anxious  to  bring  back 
such  a troublesome  fugitive  as  Voltaire.  The  matter  dropped. 

In  June  1784,  Voltaire  first  saw  the  Chateau  of  Cirey.  No 
one  was  there  when  he  arrived.  The  obliging  Marquis  was  with 
his  regiment.  He  was  generally  with  his  regiment  when  he  was 
not  wanted  at  home.  And  he  was  very  seldom  wanted  at  home. 
It  was  the  custom  of  the  day  for  a fine  lady  to  have  a lover.  The 
husband  was  the  last  person  in  the  world  to  object  to  an  arrange- 
ment so  ordinary.  Provided  everything  was  done  with  a decent 
respect  for  the  convenances — why,  then,  one  might  do  anything. 
c Modesty  has  fled  from  our  hearts  and  taken  refuge  on  our  lips  ’ 
said  Voltaire.  The  words  may  stand  as  the  motto  of  French 
eighteenth-century  morality.  It  shuddered  horror-struck  at  the 
ill-bred  word  and  connived  gaily  at  the  coarse  thing.  No  one 


74 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1734 


thought  the  worse  of  Emilie  for  her  lovers ; and  rather  thought 
the  better  of  her  for  keeping  them  so  long.  One  of  Voltaire’s 
biographers  has  adduced  as  an  excuse  for  that  i Pucelle  ’ of  his 
that  chastity  was  the  peculiar  boast  of  the  Church,  so  that  Voltaire, 
hating  the  Church,  despised  chastity  too.  Perhaps  that  excuse 
might  serve  for  his  attachment  to  Madame  du  Chatelet.  But  he 
himself  considered  that  no  excuse  was  needed  at  all.  He  was 
following  the  usual  custom  of  his  age.  If  the  Church  objected 
to  immorality  it  was  in  theory  only.  In  practice,  the  abbes  who 
had  influenced  his  boyhood  and  been  the  companions  of  his 
youth  were  a thousand  times  more  vicious  than  he  had  ever  been. 
That  he  never  showed  himself  to  better  advantage  than  in  that 
position,  does  not  make  his  long  connection  with  the  Marquise 
less  reprehensible.  But  it  remains  a fact,  that  he  was  loyal  and 
patient  when  she  was  shrewish  and  unreasonable : that  he  was 
true  to  what  he  knew  was  no  bond,  and  had  long  become  a 
bondage  : faithful  when  she  was  faithless  : abundantly  generous 
in  appreciation  of  her  mental  gifts  : and  staunch  to  her  false 
memory  to  the  end. 

Cirey-sur-Blaise  is  situated  in  Champagne,  to  the  south  of  the 
wine  country.  It  is  surrounded  by  almost  impenetrable  forests. 
It  lies  one  hundred  and  forty  bad  miles  from  Paris,  four  from 
Vassy,  the  nearest  village,  eight  from  St.  Dizier,  a little  town.  It 
is  near  Domremy,  the  birthplace  of  Joan  of  Arc.  In  1734  a 
coach  came  two  or  three  times  a week  from  Paris,  bringing  news 
of  the  world,  some  of  the  necessaries  and  a few  of  the  luxuries  of 
life.  The  chateau  itself  was  utterly  tumbledown,  old,  huge,  bare 
and  desolate.  A chapel  adjoined  it,  and  the  gardens  had  long 
fallen  into  overgrown  neglect.  A lady  visitor,  who  came  there  in 
1738,  spoke  of  the  place  in  words  which  were  at  least  admirably 
descriptive  of  her  own  character,  and  said  it  was  ‘ of  a desolation 
shocking  to  humanity,  four  miles  from  any  other  house,  in  a 
country  where  you  can  see  nothing  but  mountains  and  uncultivated 
land  and  where  you  are  abandoned  by  all  your  friends  and  hardly 
ever  see  anyone  from  Paris.’  The  last  words  denoted  the  climax 
of  horror  in  the  vulgar  little  mind  of  roundabout  Madame  Denis, 
Voltaire’s  niece.  She  had  not 1 the  insurance  of  a just  employ- 
ment ’ against  ennui  and  melancholy. 

The  first  sight  of  its  solitary  beauty  may  have  been  delighting 


Mt,  40] 


MADAME  DU  CHATELET 


75 


her  uncle’s  soul  when  in  Paris  his  ‘ English  Letters  * were  being 
burnt  by  the  hangman  and  himself  denounced  by  every  opprobrious 
term  in  the  vocabulary  of  the  government.  He  had  been  there 
but  a very  short  time  when  he  heard  news  of  a duel  in  which  the 
Duke  of  Richelieu  was  engaged ; and  hastened  to  the  camp  of 
Philippsburg  near  Baden,  where  he  arrived  on  July  1, 1734.  The 
duel  had  arisen  out  of  Richelieu’s  marriage:  so  Voltaire,  having 
made  that,  felt  responsible  for  the  duel  too.  Richelieu  was  at 
Phillipsburg  with  his  regiment.  His  injuries  were  not  serious. 
The  camp  received  Voltaire  with  so  much  eclat  and  delight  that 
Madame  du  Chatelet  warned  him  the  French  authorities  were 
offended  and  he  returned  to  Cirey.  He  had  scarcely  set  foot  in 
its  tangled  garden  before  he  became  a gardener,  busily  setting  it 
to  rights : or  looked  at  the  tumbledown  chateau,  before  he  was, 
in  his  own  words,  ‘mason  and  carpenter.’  He  had  never  had  a 
home  before.  What  matter  if  the  place  were  desolate,  ruined  and 
forlorn  ? It  was  on  the  borders  of  safety  ; it  could  be  repaired, 
improved,  beautified.  He  fell  in  love  with  it,  with  that  impulsive 
idealism  which  was  always  a part  of  his  nature  and  always  at 
variance  with  the  gay,  deadly,  careful  cynicism  of  nearly  all 
his  writings.  He  had  ‘ a passion  for  retirement  ’ he  said. 
He  lent  the  absent  Marquis  forty  thousand  francs  (at  five  per 
cent,  interest,  ‘never  paid’)  that  the  repairs  might  be  set  on 
foot.  By  August  they  were  well  in  train  and  the  house  becoming 
habitable. 

Voltaire  hunted  boar  in  the  forest  and  exchanged  country 
produce  with  an  amiable  neighbour,  Madame  de  la  Neuville.  He 
wrote  gallant  letters  to  another,  the  fat  and  goodnatured  Madame 
de  Champbonin,  who  was  to  be  hereafter  a constant  visitor  at 
Cirey.  He  was  working  of  course — at  his  ‘ Century  of  Louis  XIV.’ 
— at  new  plays — at  a certain  ‘ Treatise  on  Metaphysics  ’ and  some 
‘Discourses  on  Man,’  at  once  light  and  wise.  The  glory  of 
summer  was  on  the  land.  Voltaire  was  now  a man  of  substance 
through  his  shrewdness  and  economy  rather  than  through  his 
writings.  To  the  money  he  derived  from  them  he  was  always 
strangely  indifferent.  For  them  he  was  to  be  paid,  not  by  gold, 
but  by  their  gigantic  influence  on  the  human  mind. 

On  the  whole,  those  first  few  solitary  months  at  Cirey  must 
have  been  some  of  the  happiest  he  knew.  The  future  shone  rosy 


76  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1734 

like  dawn.  Peace,  love,  and  work — there  is  no  better  life.  That 
was  the  life  to  which  Voltaire  looked  forward  now. 

In  October  he  spent,  for  some  reason  not  certain,  a few  weeks 
at  Brussels  : and  then  returned  to  Cirey. 

In  November,  there  arrived  from  Paris,  laughing  and  vigorous, 
not  having  slept  a single  wink  on  the  journey,  and  preceded  by 
mountains  of  chiffons  and  books,  boxes,  pictures,  necessities, 
luxuries  and  superfluities — Madame  du  Chatelet. 

The  extraordinary  pair  wasted  no  time  at  all  in  sentiment. 
They  turned  their  energetic  attention  to  the  dilapidated  house 
and  grounds  at  once.  Madame  became  ‘architect  and  gardener.’ 
She  found  the  secret,  with  plenty  of  old  china  and  tapestry  to 
help  her,  ‘ of  furnishing  Cirey  out  of  nothing.’  Voltaire  had 
valuable  pictures  to  contribute  to  the  general  effect.  Both  workers 
were  so  thoroughly  practical,  so  indefatigable,  so  clever  ! It  was 
in  these  early  days  of  happiness  that  Voltaire  wrote  a blissful 
quatrain  which  was  placed  over  one  of  the  summer-houses  in  the 
garden  and  which  may  be  broadly  translated  by  the  quatrain  of 
another  poet : — 

A Book  of  Verses  underneath  the  Bough, 

A Jug  of  Wine,  a Loaf  of  Bread — and  Thou 
Beside  me  singing  in  the  Wilderness — 

Oh,  Wilderness  were  Paradise  enow  ! 

The  du  Chatelet  children,  little  Pauline  of  eight  and  Louis  of  six 
(the  third  had  died  a baby  in  the  January  of  this  year,  1734),  kept 
much  in  the  background,  were,  if  anything,  an  additional  charm 
to  the  illustrious  visitor.  He  found  Louis  a doux  and  sensible 
little  boy : discovered  him  a tutor  on  one  occasion  : gave  him  a 
silver  watch  on  another  : and  saved  his  life,  for  the  guillotine,  by 
dosing  him  with  lemonade  when  he  had  smallpox.  Pauline,  early 
sent  to  Joinville,  sixteen  miles  away,  to  be  educated,  was  fre- 
quently recalled  therefrom  when,  a little  later,  she  was  wanted  to 
act  in  the  Cirey  theatricals,  for  which,  like  her  mother,  she  had  a 
pretty  talent. 

Madame  la  Marquise  did  not  herself  pretend  at  any  time  to 
a great  interest  in  her  offspring.  When  her  husband  foolishly 
returned  presently  from  his  regiment  she  wrote  to  her  old  lover, 
Richelieu,  that  her  situation  was  very  embarrassing,  ‘but  love 


JEt.  40] 


MADAME  DU  CHATELET 


77 


changes  all  thorns  into  flowers.’  She  and  Voltaire  both  spoke  of 
the  Marquis  as  le  bonhomme.  Beyond  being  a sad  bore  in  con- 
versation and  as  incapable  of  appreciating  wit  in  others  as  he 
was  of  originating  any  himself,  he  seems  to  have  given  no  trouble 
provided  he  had  his  meals  regularly : and  remains  for  posterity 
what  he  was  for  his  contemporaries — a stupid,  goodnatured, 
complacent,  slip-slop  person  whom  one  could  neither  much  dislike 
nor  at  all  respect. 

When  he  was  at  home  his  wife  and  her  famous  guest  left  him 
to  his  sport,  his  dinner,  and  his  nap,  and  themselves  plunged  into 
work  of  every  kind,  but  particularly  into  that  intellectual  work 
which  was  the  passion  of  their  lives.  It  was  a strange  household 
in  that  tumbledown  chateau  in  the  depths  of  primeval  forests — 
a strange  mixture  of  the  laxity  and  wickedness  of  the  evil 
Paris  of  the  day  and  of  the  highest  mental  effort  and  enjoyment 
— of  the  meanest  sensual  indulgence  and  the  noblest  aspirations 
towards  light  and  liberty — the  clear  voices  of  children  and  the 
biting  and  dazzling  sarcasms  of  a Voltaire  against  those  who 
would  keep  men  in  bondage  and  ignorance,  children  for  ever. 

In  the  December  of  1734  Madame  du  Chatelet  went  to  Paris, 
taking  with  her  to  d’Argental  a new  tragedy  Voltaire  had  written, 
called  ‘ Alzire.’ 

At  the  end  of  1734  Voltaire  first  makes  allusion  in  his  letters 
to  one  of  the  most  famous — and  certainly  the  most  infamous — 
of  his  works,  the  ‘ Pucelle.’  The  idea  of  it  had  been  been  sug- 
gested at  a supper  at  Bichelieu’s — Richelieu,  equally  celebrated 
for  both  kinds  of  gallantry — in  1730.  The  ‘ Pucelle  ’ is  Joan  of 
Arc,  the  Maid  of  Orleans.  Dull  Chapelain  had  spoilt  the  subject 
already.  It  did  not  occur  as  a promising  one  to  poet  Voltaire. 
Richelieu  and  his  guests  over-persuaded  him  to  try  his  hand  upon 
it.  In  a very  short  time,  he  was  reading  aloud  to  them  the  first 
four  cantos  of  that  gay  masterpiece  of  indecent  satire.  How 
very  little  he  could  have  guessed  then  what  a plague,  danger, 
torment,  solace  and  delight  ‘my  Jeanne,’  as  he  called  her,  was  to 
be  to  him  for  the  rest  of  his  days  ! He  had  indeed  many  other 
things  to  think  of.  ‘Jeanne*  could  only  be  an  interlude  to 
weightier  occupations.  He  turned  to  her  as  one  man  turns  to 
gaming  and  another  to  dissipation.  She  was  the  self-indulgence 
of  his  life,  and  it  must  be  owned  a very  pernicious  one. 


78  THE  LIFE  OF  YOLTAIEE  [1735 

He  must  have  found  Cirey’s  neighbourhood  to  Domremy  in- 
spiring. By  January  1785,  eight  cantos  were  complete. 

Voltaire  received  in  March  the  revocation  of  his  lettre  de 
cachet — the  end  for  which  his  friends  had  used  all  their  influence. 
He  was  told  almost  in  so  many  words  that  he  might  go  back  to 
Paris  if  he  would  be  a good  boy.  On  March  80,  1785,  he  did  go 
back.  The  capital  was  always  to  him  the  gorgeous  siren  who 
fascinated  him  from  far  and  disillusioned  him  near.  Cantos  of 
that  dangerous  ‘ Pucelle  ’ were  already  flying  about  the  salons. 
Voltaire  busied  himself  in  finding  a tutor  for  little  Louis  du 
Chatelet  and  characteristically  engaged  that  Linant,  his  unsatis- 
factory protege — ignorant  and  indolent — ‘for  fear  he  should 
starve  1 — and  trusting  to  the  Marquise’s  Latin  to  improve  the 
master’s.  The  Marquis  had  desired  that  the  tutor  should  be  an 
abbe.  It  looked  more  respectable  ! But  when  Voltaire  said  de- 
cisively ‘ No  priests  chez  les  Emilies  ! ’ the  bonhomme  contented 
himself  with  the  stipulation  that  the  youth  should  have  a penchant 
for  religion. 

One  night  when  in  Paris  Voltaire  supped  with  the  famous 
Mademoiselle  Quinault,  actress  of  the  Theatre  Fra^ais.  She 
told  him  how  she  had  seen  at  a fair  a dramatic  sketch  with  a good 
idea  in  it — and  of  which  she  was  going  to  tell  Destouches,  the 
comic  playwright.  The  other  playwright  listened  in  silence : but 
the  next  morning  he  brought  her  the  plan  of  a comedy  on  the 
subject  and  vowed  her  to  secrecy.  Not  only  was  the  idea  not  to 
be  divulged,  but  the  very  name  of  the  author  of  the  play,  which 
was  called  ‘ The  Prodigal  Son,’  was  to  be  a mystery.  Theriot 
knew  of  course,  and  one  Berger.  ‘ It  is  necessary  to  lie  like  the 
devil,’  Voltaire  wrote  to  them,  ‘ not  timidly  or  for  a time  but 
boldly  and  always.  Lie,  my  friends,  lie.  I will  repay  you  when 
I can.’ 

He  thought,  not  wrongly,  that  if  its  authorship  were  known, 
the  play,  good,  bad,  or  indifferent,  would  be  hissed  from  the  stage. 
‘ I made  enough  enemies  by  “ (Edipe  ” and  the  “ Henriade,”  ’ he 
said. 

He  was  weary,  as  he  might  well  be,  of  quarrels,  of  dangers, 
and  of  jealousies.  The  visit  to  Paris  was  a very  flying  one.  He 
left  there  on  May  6 or  7.  On  May  15  he  was  writing  to  Theriot 
from  Luneville,  soon  to  be  the  Court  of  Stanislas,  ex-King  of 


Mt.  41] 


MADAME  DU  CHATELET 


79 


Poland,  and  where  Voltaire  now  found  a few  philosopher  friends 
and  the  charming  and  accomplished  bride,  Madame  de  Richelieu. 
He  was  there  but  a very  short  time. 

How  good  it  was  to  see  the  Cirey  forest  again — the  garden 
growing  daily  into  order  and  beauty — balconies  and  terraces  being 
built  here — an  avenue  planted  there — and  within,  everywhere 
delightful  evidence  of  Madame’s  clever  touch  ! He  rode  about 
the  country  on  her  mare,  Hirondelle.  He  urged  on  the  workmen — 
and  enjoyed  doing  it.  He  flung  himself  with  ardour  and 
enthusiasm  into  small  things  as  into  great.  He  had  so  many 
interests  and  was  so  much  interested  in  them,  no  wonder  he  was 
happy.  There  was  that  idle  Linant  to  spur  to  industry,  and 
Mesdames  de  la  Neuville  and  de  Champbonin  to  vary  the  home 
party.  Cirey  was  Cirey -en-felicite — Cireyshire,  in  memory  of 
that  dear  England.  Emilie  was  still  ‘ the  divine  Elmilie,’  ‘ the 
goddess,’  the  cleverest,  the  only  woman  in  the  world. 

In  August  1735  Voltaire’s  play  ‘ The  Death  of  Caesar,’ 
imitated  from  (Voltaire  thought  it  an  improvement  on)  the 
‘ Julius  Caesar  ’ of  Shakespeare,  was  played  by  the  pupils  of  the 
Harcourt  College  on  the  day  of  their  prize-giving.  ‘I  have 
abandoned  two  theatres  as  too  full  of  cabals  ’ wrote  the  author 
gaily,  ‘ that  of  the  Comedie  Franchise  and  that  of  the  world.’ 
The  truth  was  ‘ The  Death  of  Caesar  ’ was  unsuited  to  the  stage, 
and  of  what  its  author  called  ‘a  Roman  ferocity.’  It  had  no  love 
interest  and  no  female  characters. 

Voltaire  was  not  a little  indignant  when  the  piece  appeared 
in  print  in  Paris — totally  unauthorised  and  shamefully  incorrect. 
* The  editor  has  massacred  Caesar  worse  than  Brutus  and  Cassius 
ever  did,’  said  he.  Its  appearance  was  the  chief  trouble  of  this 
autumn  of  1735.  In  its  November,  Algarotti,  the  Italian  savant , 
and  the  friend  of  Prince  Frederick  of  Prussia,  came  to  stay  at 
Cirey.  He  read  aloud  his  ( Dialogues  on  Philosophy : ’ and 
Voltaire  read  aloud  a canto  of  the  ‘Pucelle,’  or  6 Louis  XIV.,’ 
or  a tragedy.  The  rest  of  the  time  they  laughed  over  their 
champagne  and  studied  Newton  and  Locke.  What  extraordinary 
people  ! The  bonhomme , if  he  was  there  at  all,  did  not  count. 
The  Marquise,  who,  as  has  been  seen,  had  learnt  English  in  a 
fortnight,  already  translated  at  sight  and  had  her  inborn  genius 
for  philosophy  and  science. 


80 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1735 


The  year  waned  in  such  studies.  Algarotti  left.  In  eighteen 
months,  besides  the  seventy-five  pages  of  the  ‘Treatise  on 
Metaphysics  * which  he  had  written  in  answer  to  Emilie’s  question 
as  to  what  she  was  to  think  on  life,  death,  God,  man,  and 
immortality,  Voltaire  had  also  written  a comedy — * my  American 
Alzire,’  ‘my  savages’ — the  three-act  tragedy  ‘The  Death  of 
Caesar,’  cantos  of  the  ‘ Pucelle,’  chapters  of  ‘ Louis  XIV.,’  some 
part  of  ‘ The  Prodigal  Son  ’ and  at  least  four  of  the  rhymed 
‘ Discourses  on  Man.’  His  letters  of  the  period  which  survive, 
and  which  only  include  a single  fragment  out  of  the  number  he 
must  have  written  to  Madame  du  Chatelet,  fill  a fourth  of  a large 
volume.  Add  to  this  that  he  was  personally  supervising  the 
building  and  decorating,  that  he  was  the  lover  of  the  Marquise — 
a position  that  always  occupied  a good  deal  of  time  with  that 
exigeante  lady — correcting  the  incorrigible  Linant,  busy  making 
all  kinds  of  chemical  experiments  and  collecting  old  pictures  by 
proxy  in  Paris,  and  it  will  be  seen  that  he  was  the  living  proof  of 
his  own  saying,  ‘ One  has  time  for  everything  if  one  chooses  to 
use  it.’ 


Mi.  41] 


81 


CHAPTER  VIII 

A YEAR  OF  STORMS 

After  the  death  of  Madame  du  Chatelet,  Longchamp,  Voltaire’s 
secretary,  rescued  from  the  flames  in  which  many  of  her  papers 
were  burning,  a number  of  letters  in  a very  small  handwriting. 
They  were  the  ‘ Treatise  on  Metaphysics.’  Voltaire  dedicated 
them  to  her  in  a quatrain  which  is  as  graceful  in  the  original  as 
it  is  clumsy  in  the  translation. 

He,  who  wrote  these  metaphysics 
Which  he  gives  you  as  your  own, 

Should  die  for  them,  as  a traitor, 

But  he  dies  for  you  alone. 

They  were  intended  only  for  her  eye.  They  contain  the  whole 
Voltairian  creed  in  brief,  but  in  every  essential.  They  were 
indeed,  in  the  opinion  of  that  day,  fit  matter  for  the  hangman, 
and  to  bring  their  author  to  the  Bastille. 

The  title  is  not  alluring,  it  must  be  confessed.  But  the  matter 
has  that  witchery  of  style  which  Voltaire’s  writings  never  missed. 
There  is  no  thinking  man  but  must  some  time  or  other  have 
asked  himself  such  questions  on  God  and  the  soul,  free-will,  liberty, 
vice  and  virtue,  as  Voltaire  here  proposes  and  answers.  Like  his 
hero  Newton,  he  knows  how  to  doubt.  He  passionately  seeks 
truth  and  pursues  that  quest  even  when  he  has  found  the  truth  is 
not  what  he  wishes  it  to  be.  No  man  ever  made  a more  clear, 
logical,  and  honest  statement  of  his  religion,  as  far  as  it  had 
then  progressed,  than  Voltaire  in  the  ‘ Treatise  on  Metaphysics  : ’ 
and  no  student  of  his  works  or  character  can  afford  to  pass 
it  by. 

The  4 Discourses  on  Man  ’ form  seven  epistles  in  easy  verse  : 
and  may  be  said  to  be  founded  on  Pope’s  ‘ Essay  on  Man  ’ in 

G 


82 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1736 


much  the  same  way  as  the  ribald  ‘ Pucelle  ’ was  founded  on  the 
‘ Maid  of  Orleans  ’ of  the  dull  and  respectable  Chapelain.  Their 
sentiments  certainly  differ  widely  from  the  comfortable  optimism 
and  orthodox  theology  of  Mr.  Pope.  In  this  work,  as  in  all  his 
others,  Voltaire  was  not  so  much  the  enemy  of  religion,  as  of  a 
religion : and  less  the  foe  of  Christianity  than  of  that  form  of  it 
called  Roman  Catholicism.  The  Epistles  are  upon  the  Nature  of 
Pleasure,  the  Nature  of  Man,  True  Virtue,  Liberty,  the  writer’s 
favourite  subjects.  They  are  easy  reading — light,  graceful, 
delicate,  witty.  In  brief,  they  are  Voltaire. 

On  January  27,  1786,  was  produced  in  Paris  Voltaire’s 
Peruvian  comedy  4 Alzire.’  4 My  Americans  ’ he  called  it  usually 
It  was  a brilliant  success,  and  ran  for  twenty  consecutive  nights. 
Voltaire  gave  all  the  proceeds  to  the  actors.  He  had  no  great 
opinion  of  it.  6 As  for  comedy,  I will  have  nothing  to  do  with  it : 

I am  only  a tragic  animal,’  said  he : and  again,  ‘ You  must  be  a 
good  poet  to  write  a good  tragedy,  a good  comedy  only  requires  a • 
certain  talent  for  versemaking.’  He  was  right — with  regard  to  him- 
self at  least.  His  comedies  are  all  sprightly  and  vivacious,  but  not 
much  else.  Between  the  lines,  indeed,  even  of  ‘ Alzire  ’ — which  the 
author,  with  a twinkle  in  his  eye,  called  ‘ a very  Christian  piece  . . . 
which  should  reconcile  me  with  some  of  the  devout’ — may  be 
read  the  most  characteristic  of  the  Voltairian  opinions.  But  he 
was  too  true  an  artist  to  allow  those  opinions  to  override  his  play, 
and  never  forgot  to  disguise  the  powder  in  a great  deal  of  jam. 
It  was  twice  performed  at  Court. 

He  was  living  quietly  at  Cirey  when  it  was  pleasing  the 
popular  taste  of  Paris.  One  is  not  surprised  that  overtaxed 
Nature  had  her  revenge  at  last.  By  February,  he  was  thoroughly 
ill.  Madame  du  Chatelet  sat  on  the  end  of  his  bed  and  read  aloud 
Cicero  in  Latin  and  Pope  in  English.  They  were  not  wasting  their 
time  anyhow  ! One  of  them,  at  least,  considered  it  nothing  short 
of  ‘a  degradation’  to  allow  bodily  ill-health  to  stop  mental 
industry. 

In  March,  he  wrote  that  he  was  ‘ overwhelmed  by  maladies 
and  occupations.’  By  April,  he  was  well  enough  to  be  plunged 
into  a quarrel  with  the  faithless  Jore,  bookseller  of  Rouen. 

If  Voltaire  was  a very  good  friend,  he  was  also  a very  good 
enemy.  A more  hot-headed,  energetic,  pugnacious  foe  certainly 


JEt.  42] 


A YEAR  OF  STORMS 


83 


never  existed.  While  he  hated,  he  hated  well.  He  lashed  his 
enemy  with  such  brilliant  invective,  such  delicate  gibes,  such 
rollicking  sarcasms,  that  one  must  needs  pity  the  poor  wretch  if 
he  deserved  his  fate  ever  so  fully.  Did  he  get  up  and  retaliate, 
Voltaire  was  at  him  again  in  a moment,  dancing  round  him, 
goading  him  to  madness  with  the  daintiest  whip  flicked  with 
mots  and  jests  and  little  cunning  allusions,  which  looked  so 
innocent,  and  always  caught  the  victim  on  the  raw.  Diatribe, 
gaiety,  quip,  mockery, — this  man  had  all  the  weapons.  He  never 
used  one  where  another  would  have  done  better.  He  had  a 
dreadful  instinct  for  finding  out  the  weak  place  in  his  adversary’s 
armour  and  logic.  4 God  make  my  enemies  ridiculous  ! ’ was  one 
of  his  few  prayers.  It  was  granted  in  full  measure. 

But  if  he  was  a dangerous  and  an  untiring  foe,  he  was  not  an 
ungenerous  one.  In  this  case,  Jore  was  certainly  the  aggressor. 
He  had  played  Voltaire  false  in  the  matter  of  the  4 English 
Letters.’  He  had  endangered  the  author’s  safety  and  condemned 
him  to  exile.  He  wrote  now  from  the  Bastille  saying  that  if 
Voltaire  would  avow  himself  the  author  of  the  book,  he,  Jore, 
would  be  released.  Voltaire  was  as  quick  to  compassion  as  he  was 
quick  to  anger.  If  he  had  hated  a pigmy  like  Jore  with  a fierce- 
ness he  should  have  kept  for  a worthier  foe,  the  moment  the 
man  was  fallen,  his  enemy  became  his  friend.  He  wrote  the  letter 
asked  of  him,  declaring  himself  to  be  the  writer  of  the  abominable 
thing.  Then  Jore  demanded  fourteen  hundred  francs,  the  cost  of 
the  confiscated  edition.  On  April  15  Voltaire  hurried  up  to  Paris. 
There  he  saw  Jore,  and,  though  denying  that  he  had  any  claim 
upon  him,  offered  him  half  the  sum  he  had  demanded.  Jore 
refused  it : brought  a lawsuit  against  Voltaire,  and  published  a 
defamatory  account  of  him.  Voltaire’s  quick  passions  were  up  in 
arms  in  a moment.  He  was  as  much  agog  to  get  at  his  enemy 
as  a terrier  is  agog  for  a rat.  He  would  have  shaken  the  wretched 
little  bookseller  in  just  such  a terrier  fashion,  if  he  could  have 
got  hold  of  him.  But  all  Voltaire’s  friends  advised  compromise 
with  such  insistence  that  he  at  last  yielded.  He  spent  twelve 
breathless  indignant  weeks  in  the  capital.  He  had  to  pay  Jore 
five  hundred  francs,  in  lieu  of  the  fourteen  hundred  he  had 
demanded.  4 1 sign  my  shame  ’ he  wrote.  But  he  signed  and 
paid  all  the  same.  He  returned  to  Cirey  in  July  sick  in  mind 


84 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIEE 


[1736 


and  body,  baffled,  bitter  and  sore.  In  a year  or  two  Jore  professed 
penitence,  and  lived  for  the  rest  of  his  life  on  a small  pension 
allowed  him — by  Voltaire. 

While  he  was  in  Paris,  two  seats  had  fallen  vacant  in  the 
the  Academy.  But  what  chance  could  there  be  of  one  for  the 
hero  of  a public  scandal,  a notorious  firebrand,  like  Voltaire  ? 
Villars  and  Richelieu  did  their  best  for  him — in  vain. 

He  professed  himself  gaily  indifferent,  and  was  bitterly  dis- 
appointed. He  had  to  further  postpone  too  the  production  of 
his  4 Prodigal  Son.*  He  could  not  give  that  son,  he  said,  so 
unpopular  a father. 

The  man  needed  rest  after  his  battles.  He  had  soon  what 
was  far  better  than  rest  to  one  of  his  vivid  temperament — a 
victory.  In  August  began  his  correspondence  with  Prince 
Frederick  of  Prussia,  afterwards  Frederick  the  Great.  It  com- 
prises many  letters  remarkable  on  both  sides,  extraordinary  on 
Voltaire’s.  It  lasted  for  many  years — before  they  met,  in  the 
early  golden  days  of  an  almost  lover-like  infatuation — and  long 
after  they  had  quarrelled  and  parted.  Voltaire  was  not  the  man 
at  any  time  to  be  insensible  to  the  honour  of  being  the  corre- 
spondent of  one  who  was  4 almost  a king.’  He  was  a great  deal 
too  impressionable  not  to  be  in  some  sort  the  child  of  his  age. 
In  all  his  glowing  dreams  of  liberty,  he  never  wished  royalty 
abolished — only  restrained,  enlightened,  ennobled.  And  behold  ! 
the  means  were  given  him  now,  himself  to  show  a king  the  way 
in  which  kings  should  walk — to  influence  a man  who  would 
influence  a great  people — to  teach  Europe,  by  a master  to  whom 
it  must  listen,  those  emancipating  truths  which  were  the  passion 
of  Voltaire’s  own  soul.  What  an  opportunity!  It  was  charac- 
teristic of  the  man  that  he  realised  and  seized  it  at  once. 

4 Believe  that  there  have  never  been  any  good  kings  save  those 
who,  like  you,  have  begun  by  teaching  themselves,  by  knowing 
men,  by  loving  the  truth,  by  hating  persecution  and  superstition. 
There  is  no  prince  who,  thus  thinking,  cannot  bring  back  the 
golden  age  to  his  country.  Why  do  so  few  sovereigns  seek  this 
great  good  ? You  know  why  it  is,  monseigneur  ; it  is  because 
they  all  think  more  of  royalty  than  of  humanity.* 

These  words  occur  in  Voltaire’s  very  first  letter,  written 
August  26,  1786.  They  are  the  text  of  all  the  others.  If  there 


Mt.  42] 


A YEAH  OF  STOEMS 


85 


were  compliments  and  flatteries,  French  grace  and  politesse,  and 
the  adulation  of  the  1 Solomon  of  the  North  * somewhat  over- 
done, those  were  the  inevitable  courtly  trappings  which  adorned 
all  letters  of  the  time.  The  monitor  of  Solomon,  as  shown  in 
that  very  first  letter,  knew  himself  to  be  the  monitor ; and,  for 
all  that  exquisite  turn  of  phrase  and  those  pretty  eulogies,  was 
going  to  remain  the  monitor  to  the  end.  The  flattery  was  by  no 
means  all  humbug  either.  This  royal  pupil  was  the  aptest  that 
ever  man  had.  He  answered  his  Voltaire,  not  unworthily.  At 
five-and-twenty  he  was  himself  philosopher  and  thinker  : as  great 
a natural  genius  as  he  was  a natural  barbarian.  All  learning 
and  cultivation  left  him  as  much  the  one  as  the  other. 

The  correspondence,  once  started,  went  on  its  way  with  a will. 
On  Voltaire’s  side  it  was  from  the  first  profoundly  philosophic. 
His  style  was  as  clear,  easy,  and  lucid  when  he  wrote  on  the 
deepest  and  subtlest  problems  of  free-will  and  personal  identity 
as  when  he  wrote  scandal  to  Theriot  or  bagatelles  to  Mademoiselle 
Quinault.  He  wrote  on  the  most  abstruse  subjects  with  a limpid 
simplicity  of  language,  unachieved  by  any  other  writer  before  or 
since.  It  is  the  greatest  glory  of  Voltaire  as  an  author  in  general, 
as  well  as  the  author  of  the  letters  to  Frederick  the  Great,  that 
he  made  profound  truths,  common  truths,  and  the  knowledge 
that  had  been  the  heritage  of  a few,  the  heritage  of  all. 

Madame  du  Chatelet  read  the  letters,  of  course,  before  they 
were  despatched  from  Cirey.  One  fills  eleven  large  pages  of 
print  and  is  practically  an  Essay  on  Personal  Liberty — reasonable 
enough,  said  Madame,  to  bring  its  author  to  the  stake.  Theriot 
showed  Frederick’s  letters  about  the  salons  of  Paris  : the  prudent 
Voltaire  thinking  that  the  correspondence  with  a king  might  just 
as  well  do  him  all  the  good  it  could,  and  proclaim  to  his  enemies 
that  all  temporal  powers  did  not  hate  and  fear  him.  At  Cirey, 
the  royal  association  certainly  gave  pleasure  at  first.  Madame 
was  singularly  superior  to  kingly  attractions  : but  Frederick  was 
a thinker  as  well  as  a prince,  and  loved  philosophy  as  she  did. 
She  had  not  begun  to  look  upon  him  as  a rival  in  her  lover’s 
affections.  In  his  very  first  letter  Voltaire  had  declined  an 
invitation  to  be  his  visitor  on  the  score  that  friends  should  always 
be  preferred  before  kings. 

The  bloom  of  that  summer  of  1786  came  and  went  on  Cirey. 


86 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1736 


Jore  was  hardly  silenced  and  by  no  means  forgotten  when 
Voltaire  flung  aside  his  princely  philosopher,  as  it  were,  to  reply 
to  a long,  scandalous,  and  very  personal  attack  which  bitter  old 
J.  B.  Rousseau,  infuriated  by  the  ‘ Temple  of  Taste,’  had  made 
upon  his  rival,  in  a publication  called  the  ‘ Bibliotheque 
Fran9aise.*  That  attack  dated  from  the  May  of  this  year.  It 
was  not  until  September  20  Voltaire  decided  to  answer  it.  He 
had  been  very  patient,  or  had  crouched  awhile  for  a surer  spring. 
His  answer  is  a masterpiece  of  gay  and  biting  satire.  ‘ Rousseau 
has  printed  in  your  journal  a long  letter  on  me  in  which,  happily 
for  me,  there  are  only  calumnies,  and,  unfortunately  for  him, 
there  is  no  wit.  What  makes  the  thing  so  bad,  gentlemen,  is  that 
it  is  entirely  his  own  ...  it  is  the  second  time  in  his  life  he  has 
had  any  imagination.  He  has  no  success  when  he  is  original.  . . . 
As  for  his  verses,  I can  only  wish  for  the  sake  of  all  the  honest 
people  he  attacks,  that  he  should  go  on  writing  in  the  same  style.’ 

And  in  answer  to  Rousseau’s  insinuations  on  Voltaire’s  origin, 
‘ 1 have  a valet  who  is  his  near  relative  and  a very  honest  man. 
The  poor  youth  begs  me  every  day  to  pardon  his  relation’s  bad 
verses.’ 

And  in  reply  to  that  little  story  Rousseau  had  once  circulated 
about  Voltaire’s  profane  behaviour  at  a mass,  ‘ Do  you  think  . . . 
it  sits  well  on  the  author  of  the  “Moisade”  to  accuse  me  of 
having  talked  in  church  sixteen  years  ago  ? . . . Thank  God, 
that  Rousseau  is  as  clumsy  as  he  is  hypocritical.  Without  this 
counterpoise  he  would  be  too  dangerous.’  The  letter  finishes  by 
recalling  all  the  humiliating  episodes  in  Rousseau’s  life  he  would 
have  most  wished  forgotten. 

From  which  it  will  be  seen  that  Voltaire  did  not  scruple  to 
employ  his  adversaries’  weapons — and  to  use  them  with  a most 
deadly  skill  and  finish. 

On  October  10,  1786,  a play  called  ‘ Britannicus  ’ could  not  be 
played  at  the  Theatre  Fran<jais  in  Paris  on  account  of  the  illness 
of  the  principal  actress.  A new  comedy  called  ‘ The  Prodigal 
Son’  by  an  anonymous  author  was  therefore  produced  in  its 
stead,  and  performed  to  a crowded  house  with  enormous  success. 

It  had  been  acted  already  by  a company  beaten  up  in  that 
desolate  neighbourhood  of  Cirey.  Voltaire  had  written  reams 
of  letters  about  it  to  Mademoiselle  Quinault,  filled  with  rather 


Mt.  42] 


A YEAR  OF  STORMS 


87 


doubtful  jokes — which  were  apparently,  however,  to  the  taste  of 
Mademoiselle  and  of  the  period.  The  ‘ Prodigal  ’ is  in  verse  and 
five  acts,  and  perhaps  reaches  a higher  level  than  most  of  Voltaire’s 
easy  comedies.  There  were  many  surmises  as  to  its  authorship. 
Voltaire  himself  suggested  that  it  was  by  one  Gresset.  Before 
he  withdrew  the  veil  of  anonymity,  ‘ The  Prodigal  Son  ’ had  been 
lavishly  praised  by  most  of  its  father’s  enemies. 

He  had  other  pleasures  just  now,  too,  besides  that  success,  to 
distract  him  from  the  thoughts  of  -his  health  which,  as  usual, 
‘ went  to  the  devil.’  ‘ Emilie,  reading  Newton,  . . . terraces  fifty 
feet  wide,  balconies,  porcelain  baths,  yellow  and  silver  rooms, 
niches  for  Chinese  trifles,  all  that  takes  a long  time,’  he  wrote  to 
Theriot.  Passing  travellers  too  came  to  Cirey,  and  told  travellers’ 
tales  about  it  when  they  returned  to  Paris.  In  this  year,  1786, 
Voltaire  began  an  immense  correspondence  with  a Parisian  agent 
of  his,  an  Abbe  Moussinot,  to  whom  he  wrote  about  investments 
and  speculations,  and  whom  he  commissioned  to  buy  tapestries, 
diamond  shoe-buckles,  and  scrubbing  brushes  ; reflecting  tele- 
scopes and  hair  powder  ; thermometers,  barometers,  scent,  sponges, 
dusters — everything  in  the  world.  ‘If  you  do  not  want  to 
commit  suicide,  always  have  something  to  do’  was  one  of  his 
own  axioms. 

Even  now,  unfortunately  for  him,  all  these  varied  occupations 
did  not  give  him  so  much  to  do  that  he  could  not  read,  re-read, 
delight  in,  and  talk  about  until  it  became  public  property,  a certain 
little  bizarrerie  of  his  versatile  mind  called  ‘ Le  Mondain.*  A gay 
little  piece  is  the  ‘ Mondain,’  three  or  four  pages  long,  in  very 
flowing  verse,  a little  impertinent,  perhaps,  and  quite  volatile  and 
careless.  It  was  written  about  the  same  time  as  ‘ Alzire.’  It 
contains  a flippant  allusion  to  Adam  and  Eve,  and  the  famous 
expression  ‘le  superflu,  chose  tres  necessaire.’  Those  are  the 
most  memorable  things  in  it.  The  most  memorable  thing  about 
it  is  the  fury  of  persecution  it  brought  down  on  the  author  and 
the  storm  of  hatred  it  excited.  The  offence  was  supposed  to  lie 
in  the  allusion  to  our  first  parents.  The  real  offence  was  the 
name  and  reputation  of  Voltaire. 

On  December  21,  1736,  he  received  a warning  letter  from  his 
friend  d’Argental  in  Paris,  telling  him  that  the  ‘ Mondain  ’ 
rendered  its  author’s  position  once  more  unsafe.  It  is  said  that 


88 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIKE 


[1737 


the  authorities  thought  of  warning  the  Marquis  that  he  must  no 
longer  give  refuge  to  such  a firebrand.  Voltaire  and  Madame 
had  a hurried  consultation.  Madame  wept  not  a little : for 
though  she  was  a philosopher  she  was  also  a woman,  and  as 
a woman,  and  after  her  capacity,  she  loved  Voltaire.  She 
strongly  opposed  the  idea  of  his  taking  refuge  with  Prince 
Frederick  : but  agreed  that  he  must  fly  across  the  frontier.  She 
went  with  him  as  far  as  four-mile  distant  Vassy,  and  they  parted 
there,  with  many  tears.  The  man’s  heart  was  hot  with  anger  and 
bitterness.  The  old  serpent  of  injustice  and  oppression  entered 
into  every  Eden  he  found.  Madame  only  remembered  that  she 
loved  him  and  that  he  must  leave  her.  The  strange  convenances 
of  the  day,  which  permitted  so  many  things,  had  a few  rules,  and 
those  few  had  to  be  observed  rigidly  to  make  up  for  many  laxities. 
If  the  Marquise  could  have  gone  with  Voltaire  to  England  or 
Prussia,  all  would  have  been  well.  But  that  was  not  permitted. 
She  could  neither  go  with  him  nor  he  stay  with  her.  They  said 
good-bye  in  a bitter  cold.  It  was  winter — the  winter  had  come 
so  soon  ! A few  days  later  there  arrived  in  Brussels,  in  deep 
snow,  one  M.  Renol,  merchant. 

No  personal  injustice  which  he  ever  suffered  so  deeply  affected 
Voltaire  as  this  one.  In  some  cases  if  he  did  not  deserve,  he  at 
least  tempted,  the  anger  of  the  authorities.  But  here ! ‘ Is  it 

possible  that  anyone  can  have  taken  the  thing  seriously  ? ’ he 
wrote.  ‘ It  needs  the  absurdity  and  denseness  of  the  golden  age 
to  find  it  dangerous,  and  the  cruelty  of  the  age  of  iron  to  persecute 
the  author  of  a badinage  so  innocent.’  He  went  to  Antwerp,  to 
Amsterdam,  and  to  Leyden.  At  Brussels  ‘ Alzire  ’ was  performed 
in  his  honour — for  all  that  he  was  travelling  incognito , and 
M.  Renol,  merchant,  had  no  reason  to  be  more  interested  in 
‘ Alzire  * than  anybody  else.  At  Leyden  crowds  flocked  to  see 
him,  and  he  was  introduced  to  Boerhaave,  the  great  doctor.  He 
was  at  Amsterdam  in  January  1737,  received  with  all  honour, 
‘ living  as  a philosopher,’  studying  much,  working  at  Newton — as 
Voltaire  alone  knew  how  to  work — at  any  hour  of  the  night  and 
day,  passionately,  thoroughly,  devotedly.  He  superintended  the 
printing  of  his  ‘ Elements  of  Newton’s  Philosophy  ’ then  in  the 
Dutch  press.  He  tried  to  forget.  But  he  could  not.  The  offence 
was  rank  and  smelt  to  heaven.  He  was  abroad  until  March. 


Mt.  43] 


A YEAE  OF  STOEMS 


89 


Then  in  answer  to  the  tears  and  prayers  of  his  Marquise,  he  gave 
out  he  was  going  to  England — and  went  to  Cirey.  But  for  those 
tears,  but  for  that  faith  unfaithful  which  kept  him  falsely  true, 
he  would  have  gone  to  England  as  he  said.  ‘ If  friendship 
stronger  than  all  other  feelings  had  not  recalled  me,  I would 
willingly  have  spent  the  rest  of  my  days  in  a country  where  at 
least  my  enemies  could  not  hurt  me  : and  where  caprice,  super- 
stition, and  the  power  of  a minister  need  not  be  feared.  . . . 
I have  always  told  you  that  if  my  father,  brother,  or  son  were 
Prime  Minister  in  a despotic  state  I would  leave  it  to-morrow. 
But  Madame  du  Chatelet  is  more  to  me  than  father,  brother,  or 
son.’  She  was.  She  had  been  not  a little  sore  and  wretched 
wThile  he  was  away.  Prudence  had  made  his  letters  perforce  so 
cold  ! ‘ He  calls  me  “ Madame  ” ! ’ The  overwhelming  vigour 

of  her  affection  brought  him  back  to  her.  But  even  her  entreaties 
for  prudence  could  not  keep  him  from  writing  a ‘ Defence  of  Le 
Mondain,’  and  an  answer  to  the  criticisms  thereon,  called  the 
‘ Use  of  Life.’  His  heart  was  hot  within  him.  Fifteen  years 
later  the  fever  burnt  still. 

4 You  will  say  fifteen  years  have  passed  since  it  all  happened  ’ 
he  wrote  to  d’Argental.  ‘No  ! only  one  day.  For  great  wrongs 
are  always  recent  wounds/ 


90 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1737 


CHAPTER  IX 

WORK  AT  CIREY 

The  spring  of  1787  passed  quietly  enough.  Voltaire  and  Madame 
du  Chatelet  were  occupied  in  scientific  experiments,  and  as  de- 
lighted as  two  children  with  wonderful  discoveries  and  a dark 
room.  They  paid  very  little  heed  to  the  summer  which  was 
coming,  tender  and  fragrant,  to  crown  desolate  Cirey  with  loveli- 
ness. Nothing  was  so  unfashionable  as  Nature  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  Even  the  poets  neglected  her — save  one  ploughman  in 
his  barren  North.  To  painters  she  served  only  as  the  unheeded 
background  to  a trim  Watteau  shepherdess  courting  a bashful 
shepherd  on  a fan.  To  Voltaire  and  his  Marquise  she  hardly 
formed  even  a background.  In  all  his  writings  there  is  not  the 
slightest  evidence  that  he  had  so  much  as  a perception  of  natural 
beauty.  He  was  fond  of  pointing  out  how  much  better  off  was 
a modern,  cultivated,  luxurious  Frenchman,  than  a happy  Adam 
in  some  wild  Eden,  and  hereafter  was  quickly  irate,  after  his 
fashion,  with  that  absurd  theory  of  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau’s  that 
the  ‘ state  of  Nature  is  the  reign  of  God.’ 

About  midsummer  there  arrived  at  Cirey  on  a visit,  one 
Kaiserling,  a Prussian,  young,  gay,  delightful,  with  a pretty  talent 
for  making  French  verses — tant  bien  que  mal — and  the  social 
ambassador  of  Prince  Frederick.  Kaiserling  brought  his  master’s 
portrait  as  a present  to  his  master’s  guide,  philosopher,  and  friend, 
and  the  warmest  of  greetings  and  messages,  besides  the  second 
part  of  somebody’s  Metaphysics  and  the  whole  of  somebody  else’s 
Dissertations.  He  was  received,  he  said,  as  Adam  and  Eve  re- 
ceived the  angel  in  Milton’s  garden  of  Eden,  only  the  hospitality 
was  better  and  the  fetes  more  gallant.  There  were  plays  and 
conversations.  Eve,  as  Madame  du  Chatelet,  was  the  easiest  and 
most  delightful  hostess  in  the  world,  who  sang  to  the  celestial 


iffiT.  43] 


WORK  AT  CIREY 


91 


organ,  played  the  spinet,  spoke  all  languages,  and  no  doubt  amused 
the  visitor,  if  he  were  not  of  nervous  habit,  by  driving  him  about 
the  country  in  her  ‘ phaeton  for  fairies  drawn  by  horses  as  big  as 
elephants.9 

In  the  evenings,  if  one  did  not  read  aloud  a canto  of  that  wicked 
‘ Pucelle 9 or  a chapter  of  ‘ Louis  XIV./  there  were  fireworks,  the 
most  beautiful  fireworks  with  letters  of  flame  spelling  Frederick’s 
name  and  surrounded  by  the  motto  ‘ To  the  Hope  of  the  human 
race.’  It  is  not  a little  curious  to  note  the  naive  delight  a Voltaire 
took  to  the  very  end  of  his  days  in  these,  and  such,  amusements. 
He  had  always  something  of  the  child  in  him — the  child’s  love 
of  laughter,  the  child’s  love  of  the  gaudy,  as  well  as  the  child’s 
hot  temper,  generous  impulse,  and  quickness  to  forgive.  Nothing 
was  so  small  that  he  was  too  great  to  be  amused  by  it.  ‘ Eire  et 
fais  rire  ’ was  one  of  his  mottoes.  He  threw  himself  into  those 
firework  preparations  as  thoroughly  as  a very  few  months  later, 
and  after  days  passed  in  the  most  abstruse  studies,  he  devoted 
himself  body  and  soul  to  marionettes,  charades,  and  a magic- 
lantern.  To  say  that  he  was  a versatile  Frenchman  is  some  ex- 
planation : but  it  is  not  a sufficient  one.  He  worked  and  thought 
so  hard  that  the  more  frivolous  the  recreation,  the  more  it  re- 
created. ‘ The  divinity  of  gaiety,’  Catherine  the  Great  called  him. 
‘ If  Nature  had  not  made  us  a little  frivolous  we  should  be  most 
wretched,’  he  said  himself.  ‘ It  is  because  one  can  be  frivolous 
that  the  majority  of  people  do  not  hang  themselves.’  It  was 
because  Voltaire  could  always  laugh  and  work  that  it  could  be 
truly  said  of  one  of  the  most  impressionable  and  sensitive  of 
human  creatures  that  ‘ sixty  years  of  persecution  never  gave  him 
a single  headache.’ 

After  three  weeks’  stay,  Kaiserling  left,  taking  with  him  to  his 
Prince  a part  of  ‘ Louis  XIV.’  and  some  short  poems.  They  both 
wanted — and  begged — just  a few  cantos  of  the  ‘Pucelle.’  But 
on  this  point  the  goddess  of  Cirey  was  perfectly  firm.  ‘The 
friendship  with  which  she  honours  me  does  not  permit  me  to  risk 
a thing  which  might  separate  me  from  her  for  ever,’  Voltaire 
wrote.  Entrust  King  and  Kaiserling  with  a bomb  which  might 
explode  at  any  moment  and  scatter  love,  liberty,  peace,  to  atoms ! 
Madame  was  too  clever  a woman  for  that.  The  guest  left  without 
his  ‘Pucelle,’  and  Emilie  and  Voltaire  plunged  deeply  again  into 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


92 


[1737-38 


the  scientific  studies  and  experiments  which  were  the  particular 
madness  of  the  hour. 

At  the  end  of  the  year  1737,  the  lazy  Linant,  the  tutor,  was 
very  rightly  discharged  by  Madame  du  Chatelet.  She  had  ex- 
tended her  kindness  to  both  his  mother  and  sister.  But  the  sister 
was  as  unpromising  as  the  brother.  They  left  Cirey.  Voltaire 
said  he  had  given  his  word  of  honour  not  even  to  write  to  his 
former  protege ; 1 but  I have  not  promised  not  to  help  him.’ 
Through  a mutual  friend  he  was  weak  and  generous  enough  to 
send  this  ‘ enfant  terrible/  as  Diderot  called  him,  fifty  livres  : and 
hereafter  took  no  little  pride  and  interest  in  Linant’s  third-rate 
writings. 

There  are  some  very  characteristic  letters  of  Voltaire’s  written 
at  this  period  in  which  he  economically  tries  to  arrange,  through 
Moussinot,  for  the  engagement  of  a young  priest,  who  is  also  to 
be  something  of  a chemist,  so  that  he  can  say  mass  in  the  Cirey 
chapel  on  Sundays  and  Saints’  days  and  devote  himself  to  the 
laboratory  all  the  others.  This  factotum  did  not  turn  out  a success, 
and  a separate  young  man  had  to  be  engaged  for  each  occupation. 

In  the  November  of  1737  died  M.  Mignot,  the  husband  of 
Voltaire’s  dead  sister  Catherine.  M.  Mignot  left  behind  two 
slenderly  portioned  and  unmarried  daughters — and  behold ! the 
versatile  Voltaire  in  the  part  of  the  paternal  uncle,  seeking  them 
husbands  and  furnishing  them  with  dots . He  wanted  Louise, 
the  elder,  to  marry  the  son  of  his  Cirey  neighbour,  the  stout, 
goodnatured  Madame  de  Champbonin.  But  Louise,  who  was  a 
bouncing  young  woman  of  four-and-twenty,  with  a pronounced 
love  of  pleasure  and  the  sound  of  her  own  voice,  entirely  declined 
to  be  buried  alive  for  the  rest  of  her  life  in  an  impossible  country 
neighbourhood  : and  expressed  these  sentiments  quite  distinctly 
to  Uncle  Voltaire.  In  practice,  as  well  as  principle,  he  was  for 
freedom  of  action.  In  his  day,  the  father,  or  the  person  who 
stood  in  place  of  the  father  to  a marriageable  girl,  disposed  of  her 
literally  without  consulting  her,  and  exactly  as  it  seemed  best  to 
himself. 

1 They  are  the  only  family  I have,’  Voltaire  wrote  of  his  nieces 
rather  sadly.  ‘ I should  like  to  become  fond  of  them.  ...  If  they 
marry  bourgeois  of  Paris  I am  their  very  humble  servant,  but 
they  are  lost  to  me.’  But  he  had  said  too  that  to  restrict  the 


ifiT.  43-44] 


WORK  AT  CIREY 


93 


liberty  of  a fellow  creature  was  a sin  against  Nature.  So  on 
February  25,  1738,  Louise  Mignot  married  a M.  Denis,  who  was 
in  the  Commissariat  Department  in  Paris,  and  received  from 
Uncle  Voltaire  a wedding  present  of  thirty  thousand  francs. 

In  March  the  young  couple  came  to  spend  part  of  their  honey- 
moon at  Cirey.  It  has  already  been  said  that  Madame  Denis 
found  the  country  horribly,  abominably,  and  dismally  dull. 
There  was  a theatre,  to  be  sure ! But  where  was  one  to  find 
actors  in  this  desert  ? The  bride  had  to  put  up  with  a puppet 
show,  which,  indeed,  was  very  good,  she  added  grudgingly.  They 
were  received  in  ‘ perfect  style  ’ too.  That  must  have  been  com- 
forting to  the  soul  of  a Madame  Denis.  Uncle  Voltaire  was 
building  1 a handsome  addition  to  the  chateau  ' — also  comforting 
perhaps  to  the  Denisian  temperament.  The  bride  added  naively 
that  her  uncle  was  very  fond  indeed  of  M.  Denis, ‘ which  does  not 
astonish  me,  for  he  is  very  amiable.' 

But  what  an  eerie  enchanted  castle  it  was  amid  these  tangled 
forests  of  Champagne  ! Its  sorceress — pretty  and  charming  as 
well  as  clever,  niece  Denis  found  her — brewed  every  potion  that 
could  keep  a lover,  humoured  his  whims,  dressed  for  him,  sang 
to  him,  decorated  the  house  to  his  fancy  and — strange  love- 
philtre  ! — quoted  him  ‘ whole  passages  of  the  best  philosophers.' 
The  captive  was  an  unconscious  captive,  but  a captive  still.  The 
chains  were  gold,  but  there  were  chains.  And  even  gold  chains 
chafe  and  bruise  and  eat  into  the  flesh  at  last.  The  commonplace 
niece  saw  much  to  which  the  brilliant  Madame  and  her  Voltaire 
were  both  as  yet  blind.  She  loudly  regretted  that  her  uncle 
should  be  lost  to  his  friends  and  bound  hand  and  foot  by  such 
an  attachment.  Voltaire  and  Emilie  parted  from  the  bride  and 
bridegroom,  it  may  be  assumed,  pretty  cheerfully.  They  were 
not  only  still  happy  in  each  other.  They  had  a prodigious  amount 
of  work  to  get  through.  And  your  idle  people,  not  content  with 
doing  nothing  themselves,  are  the  surest  prevention  of  work  in 
others  and  grudge  the  industry  they  will  by  no  means  imitate. 

In  the  June  of  1738,  the  second  Mademoiselle  Mignot  was 
married  to  a M.  de  Fontaine.  Voltaire  did  his  duty  and  gave  the 
bride  twenty-five  thousand  francs  : but  he  hated  weddings  and 
was  not  to  be  persuaded  to  go  to  this  one,  any  more  than  to 
Madame  Denis’. 


94 


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[1738 


Lazy,  good-natured  Theriot  came  to  stay  at  Cirey  in  October, 
and  no  doubt  did  his  idle  best  to  wean  his  indefatigable  host  from 
the  scientific  labours  to  which  he  was  devoted,  soul  and  body. 
The  Cirey  goddess  did  not  care  about  M.  Theriot.  If  she  was  not 
married  to  Voltaire  she  was  at  least  wifely  in  her  failings,  and 
not  at  all  too  disposed  to  like  her  lover's  old  friends.  Voltaire 
went  into  the  parting  guest’s  bedchamber,  and  under  pretence  of 
helping  him  to  pack,  slipped  into  his  box  fifty  louis.  He  was  a 
man  of  substance  by  now.  It  is  estimated  that  at  this  period  his 
income  must  have  been  about  three  thousand  pounds  per  annum 
(English  money).  Few  men  who  have  made  wealth  as  hardly 
and  thriftily  as  he  did,  and  are  of  temperament  naturally  shrewd 
and  prudent,  have  been  as  generous  with  it  when  made.  Voltaire 
was  not  only  fully  alive  to  the  claims  of  his  relatives  and  to  the 
needs  of  his  friends,  but  had  a strangely  soft  spot  in  his  cynic 
heart  for  anyone  who  was  forlorn  and  poor.  It  was  in  1737  he 
had  written  to  Moussinot,  to  go,  from  him,  to  a certain  Demoiselle 
d’Amfreville  and,  for  no  better  reason  than  that  she  was  needy 
and  had  once  had  ‘ a sort  of  estate  ’ near  Cirey, 6 beg  her  to  accept 
the  loan  of  ten  pistoles,  and  when  she  wants  more,  I have  the 
honour  to  be  at  her  service.’ 

Ever  since  Voltaire  returned  from  England  he  had  been  the 
most  enthusiastic  hero -worshipper  of  the  great  Newton  and  the 
great  Newtonian  system.  In  England,  he  had  talked  with 
Clarke,  the  dead  Newton’s  successor  and  friend.  The  year  fol- 
lowing his  arrival  at  Cirey  he  had  devoted  himself  to  science  as 
only  a Voltaire  understood  devotion.  At  his  side  was  the  woman 
who  was  the  aptest  pupil  of  Maupertuis  and  almost  the  only  other 
person  in  France  who  understood  Newtonianism,  save  Maupertuis 
himself,  Voltaire,  and  one  Clairaut.  The  rest  of  the  world  was 
Cartesian.  The  philosophy  of  Descartes  was  de  rigueur.  Fonte- 
nelle’s  ‘ Plurality  of  Worlds,’  which  clothed  that  philosophy  with 
all  the  grace  and  charms  of  a perfect  style,  was  on  the  toilet  table 
of  every  woman  of  fashion.  The  government  said  Descartes  was 
infallible,  so  he  must  be  infallible.  With  what  a passion  of  zeal 
those  two  people  set  themselves  to  seek  truth  for  truth’s  sake — to 
seek  truth  whether  it  agreed  with  the  fashionable  belief  and  the 
text-books  or  whether  it  did  not — to  find  it,  and  to  give  it  to  the 
world  ! To  make  Newton  intelligible  to  the  French  people — to 


JEt.  44] 


WORK  AT  CIREY 


95 


present  his  theories  so  that  they  would  read  as  delightfully  as  a 
romance — to  teach  his  countrymen  to  think  boldly  as  Newton 
had  thought — to  weigh,  to  ponder,  and  consider  whether  the 
popular  faiths  were  the  true  faiths — to  believe  intelligently  or  to 
deny,  not  afraid — that  was  Voltaire’s  aim.  4 Nothing  enfranchises 
like  education.’  4 When  once  a nation  begins  to  think,  it  is  im- 
possible to  stop  it.’  The  French  were  to  be  taught  to  think  by 
the  4 Elements  of  Newton’s  Philosophy.’  The  censor  prohibited 
the  work  with  its  dangerous  and  terrible  anti- Cartesian  theories 
when  it  appeared.  But  in  ten  years’  time,  the  Cartesian  theories 
were  proscribed  in  the  schools  of  Paris  and  the  Newtonian  taught 
everywhere  in  their  stead.  Voltaire  hardly  ever  won  a finer 
victory. 

In  1735  there  had  begun,  then,  to  arrive  by  that  bi-weekly 
coach  from  Paris  air-pumps,  crucibles,  prisms,  compasses,  almost 
every  kind  of  scientific  appliance  then  known.  One  day  the 
coach  brought  a practical  young  chemist  (not  a priest) — also  pur- 
chased by  the  useful  Mouissinot.  Voltaire  and  Madame  were  by 
no  means  going  to  be  content  with  reading  of  Newton’s  experi- 
ments. They  must  try  them  themselves  ! One  day,  with  a good 
deal  of  outside  help,  it  may  be  presumed,  they  weighed  a ton  of 
red-hot  iron.  The  dark  room  gave  an  almost  childish  pleasure  to 
them  both.  Voltaire  tried  experiments  of  his  own.  He  was  so 
absorbed  in  them  that  he  neglected  his  correspondence  even. 
For  the  time  being  he  was  the  most  scientific  scientist  who  ever 
breathed — in  a fever  of  interest  in  his  work,  agog  to  know  more, 
for  more  time,  more  power  to  labour,  longing  for  a body  that 
never  wanted  sleep  or  rest,  change  or  refreshment.  4 How  will 
you  be  the  better,’  a friend  inquired  of  him,  4 for  knowing  the 
pathway  of  light  and  the  gravitation  of  Saturn  ? ’ It  was  a 
stupid  question,  to  be  sure,  to  ask  a Voltaire.  All  knowledge  was 
a priceless  gain,  he  thought.  We  must  open  our  souls  to  all  the 
arts,  all  the  sciences,  all  the  feelings  ! Poetry,  physics,  history, 
geometry,  the  drama — everything.  What ! to  miss  knowing  what 
one  might  have  known  ! to  have  a mind  only  ready  for  one  kind 
of  learning,  when  it  had  room  in  it,  if  properly  arranged,  for 
every^kind  ! Friend  Cideville  had  mistaken  his  man. 

The  Marquise  was  no  whit  less  enthusiastic.  Voltaire’s  own 
mathematical  education  had  been  neglected.  But  not  hers.  The 


96 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1738 


pupil  of  Maupertuis  could  help  out  her  lover’s  defects.  Meta- 
physics were  her  passion.  She  had  the  accuracy  of  Euclid,  Vol- 
taire said,  and  algebra  was  her  amusement.  In  his  dedicatory 
Epistle  to  the  ‘ Elements,’  which  were  the  fruit  of  their  joint 
labour,  he  spoke  of  her  in  terms  which  were  at  once  high-flown 
compliment  and  hard  fact.  She  had  penetrated  ‘ the  depths  of 
transcendent  geometry  ’ and  ‘ alone  among  us  has  read  and  com- 
mented on  the  great  Newton.’  She  had  ‘made  her  own  by  inde- 
fatigable labour,  truths  which  would  intimidate  most  men,’  and 
had  ‘ sounded  the  depths  in  her  hours  of  leisure  of  what  the  pro- 
foundest  philosophers  study  unremittingly.’  She  had  corrected 
many  faults  in  the  Italian  ‘ Newtonianism  for  Ladies  ’ written  by 
their  visitor  Algarotti,  and  knew  a great  deal  more  about  the  sub- 
ject than  he, did  himself.  It  is  not  hard  to  understand  how 
Voltaire  came  by  what  he  called  his  ‘ little  system  ’ — that  women 
are  as  clever  as  men,  only  more  amiable.  He  had  Madame  du 
Chatelet  always  with  him — Madame  whose  whole  aim  in  life  then 
was  to  work,  and  to  please  him.  Her  industry  was  as  great  as 
his  own.  The  word  ‘ trouble  ’ was  never  in  her  vocabulary.  He 
loved  her  intellect  if  he  did  not  love  her.  They  should  have  been 
happy.  If  they  ever  were,  it  was  over  the  ‘ Elements  of  Newton’s 
Philosophy.’ 

The  book  was  ready  at  last.  To  make  the  theory  of  gravita- 
tion clear — and  entertaining — had  been  Voltaire’s  chief  difficulty. 
If  any  man  was  adapted  to  enlighten  obscurity,  he  was  that 
man.  His  own  mind  was  not  only  extraordinarily  brilliant,  but 
it  was  extraordinarily  neat.  In  the  ‘ Elements  ’ sequence  follows 
sequence,  and  effect,  cause,  as  incisively  as  in  a proposition  of 
Euclid. 

It  has  been  seen  that  while  Voltaire  was  in  Holland  in  the 
spring  of  1737  he  was  superintending  the  printing  of  these 
‘ Elements.’  Before  forwarding  the  last  chapters  to  the  printers 
he  sent  the  whole  book  for  the  inspection  of  the  Chancellor  of 
France,  full  of  hope.  ‘ The  most  imbecile  fanatic,  the  most 
envenomed  hypocrite  can  find  nothing  in  it  to  object  to  ’ he  wrote 
in  his  vigorous  fashion.  Six  months  passed,  and  no  answer. 
And  then  the  French  authorities  sent  a refusal.  ‘ It  is  dangerous 
to  be  right  in  things  in  which  those  in  power  are  wrong  ’ wrote 
Voltaire.  Very  dangerous.  And  how  unmannerly  of  this  pre- 


^Et.  44] 


WORK  AT  CIREY 


97 


sumptuous  Voltaire  to  dare  to  treat  the  beloved  Descartes  with 
cool  logic  and  relentless  scrutiny  just  as  if  he  were  not  sealed, 
signed,  and  stamped  by  the  infallible  decree  of  fashion ! 

But,  though  it  was  not  permitted,  as  Voltaire  said,  to  a poor 
Frenchman  to  say  that  attraction  is  possible  and  proved,  and 
vacuum  demonstrated,  yet,  as  usual,  the  pirate  publishers  would 
by  no  means  miss  their  chance. 

The  printers  of  Amsterdam  produced  an  edition  of  the  work 
which  they  called  the  ‘ Elements  of  Newton’s  Philosophy  Adapted 
to  Every  Capacity,’  ( Mis  a la  Portee  de  Tout  le  Monde).  Of 
course  there  was  not  wanting  to  Voltaire  an  enemy  to  say  the 
title  should  have  been  written  Mis  a la  Porte  de  Tout  le  Monde 
— shown  the  door  by  everybody.  The  author  raged  and  fumed 
not  a little  over  the  printers’  blunders  and  incorrectness. 

The  usual  host  of  calumnies  attacked  him  again.  Society  and 
the  gutter  press  united  in  feeling  that  a person  who  dared  to 
doubt  their  darling  Cartesian  system  must  be  of  shameful  birth 
and  the  most  abandoned  morals.  They  insulted  him  with  all 
‘ the  intrepidity  of  ignorance.’  He  was  accused  of  intrigues  with 
persons  he  had  never  seen  or  who  had  never  existed.  The  vile 
license  of  that  strictly  licensed  press  is  the  finest  argument  for  a 
free  press  to  be  found  : the  freest  is  less  scurrilous  than  those 
much  watched  and  prohibited  journals  of  old  France. 

Not  the  less,  the  storm  which  heralded  its  birth  thundered  the 
‘ Elements  of  Newton’s  Philosophy  ’ into  fame.  It  is  forbidden  : 
so  we  must  read  it ! If  Fontenelle  had  made  the  system  of 
Descartes  intelligible,  Voltaire  made  the  system  of  Newton  amus- 
ing. In  1741  he  brought  out  an  authorised  edition.  In  ten 
years,  as  has  been  said,  there  were  hardly  so  many  Cartesians  in 
France. 

To  this  same  year  1738  belongs  a Prize  Essay  which  Voltaire 
wrote  for  the  Academy  of  Sciences  on  the  ‘ Nature  and  Propaga- 
tion of  Fire.’  There  were  plenty  of  foundries  near  Cirey,  where 
he  could  make  practical  observations  on  the  subject.  So  he  went 
and  observed.  Time  ? The  man  had  on  his  hands,  to  be  sure, 
a lawsuit,  a tragedy,  a history,  an  enormous  correspondence,  a 
4 Pucelle,’  a love  affair,  an  estate,  and  a couple  of  chattering  lady 
visitors  who  had  to  be  amused  in  the  evenings  with  music,  with 
readings,  and  charades.  He  had  nearly  finished  writing  the  essay 


98 


The  life  of  voltaife 


[1738 


when  Madame  du  Chatelet,  whose  opinions  differed  from  his  and 
who  always  had  the  courage  of  them,  must  needs  write,  in  secret, 
a rival  essay  on  the  same  subject. 

She  began  to  work  on  it  but  a month  before  it  had  to  be  sent 
in.  She  could  only  write  at  night,  since  Voltaire  did  not  know 
she  was  doing  it.  Her  husband — strange  confidant ! — was  the 
only  person  in  the  secret.  For  eight  nights,  she  only  slept  one 
hour  in  each.  Every  now  and  then  she  thrust  her  hands  into 
iced  water  to  refresh  herself,  and  paced  her  room  rapidly.  The 
idea  possessed  her.  ‘ I combated  almost  all  Voltaire’s  ideas  ’ she 
said  herself. 

He  once  very  happily  defined  their  connection  as  ‘ an  unalter- 
able friendship  and  a taste  for  study.’  It  was  friendship  and 
would  have  been  happier  for  both  if  no  softer  feeling  had  entered 
it.  They  were  friends  who  could  intellectually  differ  and  be 
friends  still : who  never  sacrificed  truth  to  sentiment,  and  whose 
bond  of  union  was  not  a passion  for  each  other,  but  for  knowledge. 

Each  of  the  pair  sent  in  their  efforts.  Madame’s  was  chiefly 
remarkable  for  the  statement  that  different  coloured  rays  do  not 
give  an  equal  degree  of  heat : since  proved  indisputably  correct 
by  repeated  experiments.  Voltaire’s  paper,  as  well  as  Emilie’s, 
contained  many  new  ideas.  That  of  itself  was  sufficient  to  dis- 
qualify their  efforts  for  the  prize.  It  did  do  so.  It  was  divided 
between  three  other  competitors,  who  were  correctly  orthodox  and 
anti-Newtonian. 

Then  Madame  told  her  secret,  and  Voltaire  wrote  a favourable 
anonymous  review  of  that  essay  which  contradicted  his  own,  and 
should  have  made  Madame  du  Chatelet  famous  in  a better  way 
than  as  his  mistress. 

Both  of  them  were  as  disappointed  as  two  children  might  have 
been  at  their  failure.  ‘ Our  Essays  really  were  the  best ! ’ they 
wrote  and  told  Maupertuis,  almost  in  so  many  words.  They  were  : 
although  neither  of  them  is  now  worth  much  as  science.  Some  of 
their  theories  have  been  superseded  ; or  proved  absolutely  wrong. 
But  they  were  wise  for  their  age,  and  brilliantly  expressed. 
That  may  be  said,  but  not  much  more  than  that,  for  all  Voltaire’s 
scientific  works.  They  were  the  alphabet  of  the  language — to 
teach  a scientific  childhood  to  think  for  itself.  It  is  because  they 
accomplished  that  aim  to  the  full  that  they  are  forgotten  to-day. 


ZEt.  44] 


99 


CHAPTER  X 

PLEASURE  AT  CIREY 

On  December  4,  1788,  there  arrived  at  Cirey,  having  been  almost 
upset  out  of  her  post-chaise,  and  actually  compelled  to  wade 
through  the  midwinter  mud  of  the  worst  roads  in  France, 
a visitor,  Madame  de  Graffigny. 

Fat  and  forty  was  Madame  : a vulgar,  cheerful,  gossiping  old 
nurse  : already  an  ardent  hero- worshipper  of  Voltaire,  whom  she 
had  met  at  Luneville,  and  with  something  of  literary  taste  on  her 
own  account.  The  Graffigny  had,  in  fact,  caught  that  eighteenth- 
century  epidemic  which  showed  itself  in  easy  wit,  easy  writing, 
and  easy  morals.  She  had  a brute  of  a husband  from  whom  she 
had  just  obtained  a divorce.  She  had  no  money.  She  had  any 
number  of  friends.  Voltaire  seems  to  have  liked  her  because  she 
was  poor,  good-natured,  and  adored  him.  He  came  to  meet  his 
guest  in  her  room  when  she  arrived  at  two  o'clock  on  that 
December  morning,  with  a flat  candlestick  in  his  hand,  and 
looking  for  all  the  world,  said  the  effusive  lady,  like  a monk. 
Emilie  was  there  too.  Her  greetings  were  only  a shade  less 
warm  than  her  lover’s.  Madame  de  Graffigny  was  left  alone  : so 
that  she  could  then  and  there  sit  down  to  her  writing-table  and 
for  the  benefit  of  a dear  confidant,  called  Panpan,  ring  up  the 
curtain  on  one  of  the  most  intimate  and  minute  of  domestic 
comedies  ever  given  to  the  public. 

Some  years  later  Madame  de  Graffigny  obtained  some  con- 
temporary celebrity  by  her  ‘ Letters  of  a Peruvian.’  They  are 
altogether  forgotten.  But  her  ‘Vie  Privee  de  Voltaire  et  de 
Madame  du  Chatelet  ’ will  live  as  long  as  the  fame  of  that  strange 
oair  and  the  popularity  of  gossiping  memoirs. 

Since  their  arrival  there  in  1784  both  Voltaire  and  Emilie 
had  been  busy  in  improving,  not  only  the  outside,  but  the  inside 

H 


100 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1738 


of  their  thirteenth-century  chateau.  Voltaire  had  a little  wing 
to  himself  which,  by  the  irony  of  fate  or  choice,  adjoined  the 
chapel.  He  could  open  his  bedroom  door  and  sacrifice  to  the 
convenances  by  seeing  mass  performed,  while  he  went  on  with  his 
own  occupations.  Sometimes  the  visitors  fulfilled  their  religious 
duties  in  this  way  too.  They  were  all  very  particular  not  to  miss 
the  attendance  on  Sundays  and  fete  days.  Their  religion  was 
a concession  to  social  laws,  like  powdering  the  hair.  When 
Voltaire  was  ill  in  bed,  which  was  pretty  often,  he  had  his  door 
opened  so  that  he  could  hear  the  penitential  litanies  being  recited, 
and  had  a screen  drawn  round  him  to  exclude  draughts.  His 
rooms  were  very  simply  furnished,  for  use  not  show,  spotlessly 
clean,  so  that  you  could  kiss  the  floor,  said  Madame  de  Graffigny, 
in  the  enthusiastic  hyperbole  of  her  early  letters.  There  was 
very  little  tapestry  and  a good  deal  of  panelling  which  formed  an 
admirable  background  to  a few  good  pictures.  There  was  a small 
hall,  where  their  guests  took  their  morning  coffee  sometimes, 
where  a stove  made  the  air  like  spring,  and  where  there  were 
books  and  scientific  apparatus,  a single  sofa  and  no  luxurious 
armchairs  at  all.  The  dark  room — still  unfinished — led  out  of 
the  hall,  and  there  was  a door  into  the  garden. 

The  Goddess’s  apartments  were  far  more  gorgeous.  The  lady- 
visitor  went  into  ecstasies  over  that  bedroom  and  boudoir 
upholstered  in  pale  blue  and  yellow — even  to  the  basket  for  the 
dog — the  pictures  by  Watteau  and  the  fireplace  by  Martin,  the 
window  looking  on  the  terrace,  and  the  amber  writing-case, 
a present  from  the  politic  Prince  Frederick. 

The  rest  of  the  castle  was  ill-cared  for  enough,  she  said.  The 
thirty-six  fires  which  blazed  in  it  daily  could  not  keep  it  warm. 
In  her  own  room,  in  spite  of  a fire  6 like  the  fire  of  Troy,’  she  sat 
and  shivered.  On  Christmas  Eve  the  draught  from  the  windows 
blew  out  the  candles — although  the  visitor  had  solemnly  vowed 
those  draughts  should  be  stopped  with  canvas  bags  ‘ if  God  gives 
me  life.’  It  may  not  unfairly  be  surmised  that  most  of  the 
guests  suffered  as  she  did.  Voltaire  was  a very  good  host — 
hospitable,  kind,  warmhearted,  very  anxious  they  should  not  be 
bored,  and  indefatigable  in  amusing  them  with  entertainments  in 
the  evenings  and  talking  to  them  at  meals.  But  their  comfort  in 
their  rooms  was  naturally  not  his  province.  He  did  not  think  of 


^Et.  44] 


PLEASURE  AT  CIREY 


101 


it,  and  6milie  did  not  care.  She  did  not  object  to  visitors  so 
long  as  they  left  her  plenty  of  time  and  solitude  to  work  : and 
then  was  ready  enough  to  be  charming  in  the  evenings.  Experi- 
mental science  and  good  housekeeping  are  not  necessarily  incom- 
patible : but  each  must  have  its  own  hours.  Science  had  all 
Madame  du  Chatelet’s.  She  seems  to  have  been  the  sort  of 
mistress  who  provided  a liberal  table  for  her  friends  because  it 
is  much  less  trouble  to  be  liberal  .than  economical,  and  had 
occasional  fits  of  frugality  which  took  the  form  of  feeding  her 
servants  very  meanly.  She  was  sublimely  inconsiderate  towards 
them,  as  she  was,  in  a lesser  degree,  inconsiderate  towards  her 
own  friends.  She  was  of  her  age  ! The  noblesse  of  that  time 
treated  their  dependents  exactly  as  if  they  were  animals,  and 
animals  who  were  at  once  dumb,  deaf,  blind,  and  stupid.  Behind 
their  masters’  chairs,  the  valets  listened  to  theories  on  which  the 
masters  talked  and  the  servants  acted.  Longchamp,  who  was 
later  half  secretary,  half  valet  to  Voltaire,  and  before  that  in 
Madame  du  Chatelet’s  service,  has  left  on  record  how  he  assisted 
at  her  toilet  as  if  he  had  been  her  maid.  For  her,  he  was  not 
a human  creature  but  a thing — not  a man,  but  a machine. 

When  Madame  de  Graffigny  arrived  she  found  two  fellow 
visitors  also  at  Cirey — Madame  de  Champbonin,  Voltaire’s  near 
neighbour  and  distant  relative,  and  her  son.  Madame  de  Champ- 
bonin was  variously  and  elegantly  known  as  the  ‘ fat  lady  ’ or  the 
‘ great  tomcat.’  Voltaire  made  her  in  some  sort  a confidante. 
Perhaps  the  stout  placidity  of  her  disposition  was  restful  after 
the  tumultuous  emotions  of  the  ‘ effervescent  Emilie.’  The  son 
was  employed  as  Emilie’s  amanuensis,  and  copied  for  hours  and 
hours  manuscripts  of  which  he  did  not  understand  a single  word. 
The  two  lady  visitors  seem  to  have  walked  about  the  castle  a good 
deal  and  admired  its  beauties,  sympathised  with  each  other 
concerning  the  draughts  and  the  hostess’s  sublime  indifference 
to  such  trifles,  and  hugged  themselves  with  delight  at  the 
thought  that  half  France  was  dying  to  be  in  their  position  as 
guests  at  Cirey.  To  be  sure,  there  were  drawbacks  even  in  this 
earthly  Paradise : but  half  France  did  not  know  that,  and  the 
daily  journal  addressed  to  Panpan  was  still  rapturous. 

Presently  the  Abbe  de  Breteuil,  Madame  du  Chatelet’s  brother, 
also  came  to  stay.  He  was  grand  vicaire  at  Sens.  He  was  in 


102 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1738 


every  sense  a typical  abbe  of  the  period — not  much  pretending  to 
believe  in  the  religion  he  professed — with  a pronounced  taste  for 
broad  stories — and  ‘ assez  bon  conteur  ’ himself.  The  connection 
between  his  sister  and  Voltaire  seemed  to  him  only  a thing  to 
be  proud  of.  He  had  countenanced  it  by  his  presence  here 
before.  The  Marquis  countenanced  it  too.  Why  should  anyone 
else  be  particular  ? The  abbe  had  come  to  enjoy  himself,  and 
he  did. 

While  he  was  there  the  day  began  with  coffee  in  Voltaire’s 
hall  between  10.80  and  11.80.  Even  Madame  du  Chatelet  seems 
to  have  roused  herself  dimly  to  the  sense  that  she  had  visitors 
and  that  something  might  be  expected  of  her  in  the  way  of 
entertaining  them.  Both  she  and  Voltaire  tore  themselves  away 
a little  oftener  and  for  a little  longer  time  from  their  beloved 
Newton,  during  Breteuil’s  visit.  Everybody  stayed  with  them  in 
the  hall  till  noon,  when  the  Marquis  and  the  two  Champbonins 
went  off  to  their  dejeuner . The  Marquis  was  always  threatening 
to  go  to  Brussels  to  see  about  an  endless  lawsuit  he  was  concerned 
in  there,  and  putting  off  his  departure ; which  was  a pity,  as  no 
one  wanted  him.  After  coffee,  Voltaire,  the  abbe,  Emilie,  and 
Madame  de  Graffigny  talked  on  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth 
for  a while,  and  then  separated. 

The  Marquise  drove  her  great  horses  in  her  caldche  sometimes 
in  the  morning.  Once  she  would  have  insisted  on  nervous 
Madame  de  Graffigny  going  with  her,  but  Voltaire  interfered  and 
said  people  must  be  happy  in  their  own  way.  So  Emilie,  who 
had  herself  no  time  for  nerves,  went  out  alone. 

Sometimes  the  party  met  again  for  goilter  at  four — sometimes 
not  till  the  nine  o’clock  supper.  That  was  the  appointed  hour 
for  relaxation.  Who  would  not  have  been  of  those  evenings  ? 
Voltaire  was  inimitably  gay,  brilliant,  and  amusing.  Madame  de 
Graffigny  had  him  on  one  side  of  her,  and  that  pitiless  bore,  the 
unfortunate  Marquis,  on  the  other.  He  said  nothing,  fell  asleep, 
and  ‘ went  out  with  the  tray.’ 

The  supper  was  elegant  and  sufficient,  without  being  profuse. 
Voltaire  had  his  valet  always  behind  his  chair  to  look  after  him, 
besides  two  other  lackeys  also  in  attendance.  Emilie  was 
geometrical  no  more.  She  was  a woman  of  the  world,  trained 
in  the  first  Court  in  Europe,  witty,  easy,  charming,  delightful. 


jEt.  44] 


PLEASUEE  AT  CIEEY 


103 

The  stories  had  been  broad  at  previous  suppers ; but  they  were 
broader  than  ever  now,  for  the  especial  benefit  of  Breteuil.  He 
told  some  of  the  same  kind  himself  which  entertained  everybody 
immensely  and  which  Madame  de  Graffigny,  who  had  laughed  at 
them  fit  ‘ to  split  her  spleen,’  retailed  for  Panpan’s  benefit  the 
next  day.  The  company  drank  Rhine  wine  or  champagne  which 
loosened  their  tongues  and  brightened  their  wits,  though  they 
were  a temperate  little  gathering,  by  nature  as  well  as  from 
prudence.  Voltaire  improvised  verses  over  the  dessert,  or  read 
something  aloud,  or  quoted  from  memory.  The  bare  mention  of 
J.  B.  Rousseau  or  Jore  or  any  other  enemy  drew  from  him  a 
quick  torrent  of  vivacious  indignation.  One  night,  after  dessert 
and  the  perfume  handed  after  the  dessert,  there  was  a magic- 
lantern.  Voltaire  showed  it  with  1 propos  to  make  you  die  of 
laughing  ’ said  Madame  de  Graffigny.  Another  night  there 
were  charades.  A third,  there  was  a reading  of  the  ‘ Mondain. 

A fourth,  the  entire  party  migrated  to  the  bathroom — an  exqui- 
site room  with  porcelain  tiles,  marble  pavement,  pictures,  en- 
gravings and  bric-a-brac — where  Voltaire  read  aloud  a canto  of 
the  ‘ Pucelle.’  Panpan’s  correspondent  avowedly  enjoyed  that 
immensely.  So  did  everyone  else.  To  hear  something  really 
shocking  and  dangerous  read  aloud  in  a bathroom  with  closed 
doors — how  'piquant ! Madame  de  Graffigny  gave  Panpan 
epitomes  of  the  cantos  she  heard,  and  lived  to  wish  she  had  not. 
After  the  cantos  they  amused  themselves  by  making  punch. 

Another  evening  they  rehearsed  ‘ The  Prodigal  Son  ’ and  a 
farce  Voltaire  had  written,  ‘Boursouffle.*  Private  theatricals 
were  one  of  the  Cirey  manias.  The  little  theatre  was  reopened 
for  Breteuil’s  benefit.  Pauline  du  Chatelet  of  twelve  was  inter- 
rupted in  her  education  at  Joinville  to  play  the  part  of  ‘ Marthe,’ 
which  she  learnt  in  the  post-chaise  coming  home.  One  night 
they  danced  in  the  theatre.  Another,  Voltaire  read  one  of  the 
1 Discourses  on  Man.’  Yet  another  they  discussed  Newtonianism. 
Once,  Voltaire  showed  them  the  scientific  apparatus — which  still 
stood  in  the  hall  awaiting  the  completion  of  the  dark  room — and 
they  looked  at  globes  and  through  telescopes.  Twice  he  read  his 
new  play  ‘ Merope  ’ to  them,  and  on  the  second  occasion  the 
effusive  Graffigny  ‘ wept  to  sobs.’  She  had  also  told  them  her 
own  melancholy  family  history,  when  it  had  been  Voltaire’s  turn 


104  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1738 

to  weep,  and  Madame  du  Chatelet  was  unable  to  pursue  her 
geometrical  studies  for  the  evening. 

Breteuil  did  not  stay  more  than  a week  or  so  in  all.  The  fun 
had  been  fast  and  furious  while  it  lasted.  It  may  be  surmised 
that  Voltaire  and  Emilie  were  not  sorry  to  relax  their  efforts  to 
keep  the  social  ball  rolling.  They  plunged  deeper  than  ever  into 
hard  work.  Madame  worked  all  day  as  well  as  all  night — and 
never  left  her  room  except  for  the  morning  coffee  and  the  evening 
supper.  Voltaire  often  could  not  tear  himself  from  his  desk  until 
that  supper  was  half  over : and  directly  it  was  finished  could 
hardly  be  prevented  from  returning  to  his  writing.  He  did  his 
best — he  had  the  true  French  politesse  all  his  life  long — to  talk 
and  tell  stories  and  amuse  his  guests  ; but  his  thoughts  were  far 
away.  He  was  shut  up  in  his  own  room  the  whole  day  too, 
now,  except  for  a few  minutes  when  he  called  on  his  two  lady 
guests.  He  would  not  even  sit  down.  * The  time  people  waste 
in  talking  is  frightful  ’ he  said  on  one  of  these  brief  visits. 
‘ One  should  not  lose  a minute.  The  greatest  waste  possible  is 
waste  of  time/  Madame  de  Graffigny  was  thrown  on  the  stout 
lady  for  all  companionship,  and  was  in  the  melancholy  position 
of  the  person  who  has  to  pretend  she  likes  quiet,  solitude,  and 
reflection,  and  does  not.  After  a very  little  while  her  graphic 
and  garrulous  pen  goes  much  less  easily  and  gaily  over  the 
paper. 

Voltaire  and  Madame  du  Chatelet  had  troubles  of  which  their 
guest  did  not  know  the  cause,  but  of  which  she  felt  the  effect. 
The  Christmas  Day  of  1788  was  one  of  the  darkest  of  both  their 
lives.  To  be  unhappy  is  seldom  to  be  very  amiable.  This 
Graffigny  too  was,  on  her  own  showing,  something  of  a fool. 
Voltaire  and  Madame  lived  in  a Paradise  about  which  a serpent, 
called  the  French  authorities,  was  for  ever  lurking,  ready  to  spoil. 
Voltaire  was  always  writing  something  he  should  not  have 
written.  And  Madame  de  Graffigny  was  always  writing  those 
voluminous,  gushing,  confidential,  imprudent  epistles  to  Panpan. 
What  did  she  say  in  them  ? On  December  29,  1788,  a tempest 
which  had  long  been  gathering  in  petty  mistrusts,  small  jealousies, 
opened  or  kept  back  letters,  suspicions,  fears,  hatreds — burst  in 
a clap  of  thunder.  There  was  a constrained  and  silent  supper. 
Then  Voltaire  came  to  Madame  de  Graffigny’s  rooms  and  accused 


JEiT.  44] 


PLEASURE  AT  CIREY 


105 


her  of  having  betrayed  his  trust  and  endangered  his  safety  by 
having  copied  cantos  of  the  1 Pucelle  * and  sent  them  to  Panpan. 
She  denied  the  accusation  in  to  to.  Voltaire,  beside  himself  with 
fury,  made  her  sit  down  and  write  and  ask  Panpan  and  Desmarets, 
her  lover,  both  for  the  original  canto  she  had  sent  and  the  copies 
which  had  been  made  of  it.  The  unfortunate  lady  entirely  lost 
her  head.  Then  enter  Madame  du  Chatelet  in  a rage  royal, 
besides  which  Voltaire’s  was  calmness,  temperance,  and  reason. 
She  produced  a certain  letter  from  her  pocket  as  a proof  of 
infamy  and  flung  it,  very  nearly  literally,  in  her  guest’s  face. 
She  accused  her  of  having  stolen  a canto  of  the  ‘ Pucelle  * from 
her  desk.  She  reminded  her  that  she  had  never  liked  her,  and 
had  only  invited  her  to  Cirey  because  she  had  nowhere  else  to  go. 
The  Graffigny  was  a monster,  the  most  indigne  of  creatures — all 
the  opprobrious  things  in  the  du  Chatelet  dictionary,  which  was 
a very  full  one.  Voltaire  put  his  arm  round  his  furious  mistress 
and  dragged  her  away  at  last.  The  quarrel  was  so  loud  that  the 
Graffigny’s  maid,  two  rooms  off,  heard  every  word  of  it.  Madame 
de  Champbonin  came  in,  in  the  middle,  but  very  prudently 
retired  at  once.  When  Madame  de  Graffigny  was  calm  enough 
to  read  the  letter  which  Emilie  had  flung  at  her,  she  discovered  it 
was  one  of  Panpan’s  which  Emilie  had  intercepted  and  read  and 
wherein  was  the  remark  ‘ The  canto  of  “ Jeanne  ” is  charming.’ 
Madame  de  Graffigny  was  able  to  explain  to  Voltaire  in  a very 
few  words  that  this  sentence  referred  to  her  description  of  the 
pleasure  one  of  those  readings  of  the  ‘ Pucelle  ’ had  given  to  her- 
self, and  that  there  had  been  no  question  of  stealing,  copying,  and 
sending  a canto  to  anybody  in  the  world. 

Cannot  one  fancy  how  that  little,  sensitive,  vif,  angry  Voltaire 
was  on  his  knees  to  his  offended  guest  at  once,  begging  her  a 
thousand  pardons,  kissing  her  hands,  apologising,  furious  with 
Emilie  and  ashamed  of  himself  ? It  was  already  five  o’clock  in 
the  morning.  But  Emilie  was  recalled  not  the  less  (Megsera, 
poor  Graffigny  named  her  now).  Voltaire  argued  long  with  her, 
in  English,  to  bring  her  to  reason,  and  was  so  far  successful  that 
the  next  day  she  coldly  apologised  to  her  guest.  She  was  too 
much  in  the  wrong  to  forgive  easily  or  thoroughly.  As  for 
Voltaire,  he  asked  pardon  again  and  again  with  tears  in  his  eyes. 
He  could  not  do  too  much  to  make  up  for  his  suspicions  and 


106 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1738-39 


mistake.  Emilie  was  diabolically  cold  and  haughty.  The  un- 
fortunate visitor  was  6 in  hell 5 she  said.  But  she  had  no  money 
and  nowhere  to  go  to.  There  were  silent  uncomfortable  suppers. 
Voltaire’s  ‘ pathetic  ’ excuses  and  nervous  anxiety  for  her  comfort 
and  well-being,  when  he  came  to  see  her  in  her  rooms,  did  not 
make  her  position  much  easier. 

After  waiting  three  weeks  Madame  de  Graffigny  obtained  con- 
firmation of  her  story  from  Desmarets  and  Panpan. 

Emilie  at  last  relented  so  far  as  to  give  her  guest  the  very 
doubtful  pleasure  of  driving  her  out  in  that  caleche  of  hers  : and 
talking  to  her  more  freely  and  amicably.  But  though  such 
wounds  as  Madame  de  Graffigny  had  received  may  heal,  the  scars 
remain  for  ever. 

On  January  12,  1739,  the  mathematical  Maupertuis,  Madame 
du  Chatelet’s  tutor,  came  to  stay  a few  days.  The  unlucky 
Graffigny  suffered  a good  deal  from  her  eyes  about  this  time,  and 
stayed  much  in  her  room.  Voltaire  himself  was  in  wretched 
health  ; so  there  was  no  play-acting.  Madame  de  Champbonin 
left  for  Paris  on  a mission  of  whose  nature  the  Graffigny  was 
ignorant.  On  January  18  the  Marquis  du  Chatelet  went  to 
Seineville  bearing  with  him  many  letters  and  messages  for  dear 
Panpan.  Early  in  the  next  month  Desmarets,  the  lover  of 
Madame  de  Graffigny,  came  to  stay  and  Cirey  roused  itself  to 
another  burst  of  gaiety.  It  acted  1 Zaire  ’ and  ‘ The  Prodigal 
Son  ’ and  a play  called  ‘ The  Spirit  of  Contradiction.’  One 
rehearsal  lasted  till  three  o’clock  in  the  morning.  Once  the 
party  spent  the  whole  day  in  Emilie’s  room  where  she  was  ‘ in 
bed  without  being  ill.’  The  next,  she  was  singing  to  the  clavecin, 
accompanying  herself.  Another,  she  sang  through  a whole  opera 
after  supper.  She  and  Desmarets  went  out  riding.  In  one 
twenty-four  hours  the  company  had  rehearsed  and  played  thirty- 
three  acts  of  tragedies,  operas,  and  comedies.  Desmarets  read 
Panpan’s  letters  to  the  Graffigny  while  she  was  at  her  toilette,  as 
3he  had  no  time  herself.  Desmarets  was  4 transported,  intoxi- 
cated ’ — enjoying  himself  immensely. 

His  mistress  may  be  presumed  to  have  been  more  unhappy 
than  ever,  since  the  first  thing  he  had  done  on  his  arrival  at 
Cirey  was  to  tell  her  he  no  longer  felt  for  her  the  feelings  of  a 
lover.  He  went  away. 


^Et.  44-45] 


PLEASURE  AT  CIREY 


107 


About  the  middle  of  February  1739  Madame  de  Graffigny 
herself  left  Cirey,  having  been  there  less  than  three  months — not 
six,  as  the  title-page  of  her  book  declares.  For  the  rest  of  her 
life  Voltaire  was  one  of  the  most  staunch  and  generous  friends 
she  had  in  the  world. 

Nothing  in  Madame  de  Graffigny’s  ‘ Vie  Privee  de  Voltaire  et 
de  Madame  du  Chatelet  ’ is  so  interesting  as  the  light  she  throws 
on  their  relationship  to  each  other.  The  golden  chains  had 
begun  to  eat  into  the  flesh.  Voltaire  and  Madame  du  Chatelet, 
like  lesser  persons,  had  to  pay  the  inexorable  penalty  of  a breach 
of  moral  law.  1 Wrong  committed — suffering  insured.’  Their 
punishment  was  the  severest  of  all — it  came,  not  from  outward 
circumstances,  but  from  themselves.  The  very  relationship 
which  had  been  a sin  and  a delight,  was  now  at  once  sin  and 
torment.  The  gods  are  just. 

The  visitor  was  not  long  in  discovering  clouds  in  the  blue 
heavens  of  Voltaire’s  ‘ Cirey-en-felicite.’  There  was  the  ‘ eternal 
cackle  ’ of  Emilie’s  tongue,  and  her  sublime  indifference  to  trifles 
like  the  hours  of  meals.  Did  not  she  love  power  too  ? Not  only 
to  have  power  but,  womanlike,  to  show  she  had  it.  One  day  her 
lover’s  coat  does  not  please  her.  He  shall  change  it ! He 
agrees — for  peace,  one  may  suppose,  since  the  coat  is  good 
enough  and  he  does  not  wish  to  catch  cold  by  putting  on  another 
— and  his  valet  is  sent  for  ; but  cannot  be  found.  Let  the 
matter  rest ! Not  Madame.  She  persists.  They  quarrel  with 
a great  deal  of  vivacity,  in  English.  They  always  quarrel  in 
English.  Voltaire  goes  out  of  the  room  in  a rage,  and  sends 
word  to  say  he  has  the  colic.  They  are  very  like  two  children. 
Presently  they  are  reconciled — also  in  English  and  tenderly. 
‘ Mais  elle  lui  rend  la  vie  un  peu  dure.’ 

Another  time  the  quarrel  is  about  a glass  of  Rhine  wine. 
Rhine  wine  disagrees  with  this  imprudent  Voltaire  ! The  im- 
prudent Voltaire,  is,  not  to  put  too  fine  a point  upon  it,  very  much 
out  of  temper  with  Emilie’s  interference  in  the  matter.  And  it 
takes  the  united  and  warmest  persuasions  of  Breteuil  and 
Graffigny  to  make  him  read  ‘ Jeanne  ’ after  supper  as  he  has 
promised. 

At  one  of  the  readings  of  ‘ Merope,’  Madame  du  Chatelet, 
with  her  abominably  clever  tongue,  turns  it  into  ridicule  and 


108 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1739 


laughs  at  it.  She  knows  her  vain  and  sensitive  Voltaire’s  tender 
places,  it  seems,  and  for  the  life  of  her  cannot  help  putting  her 
finger  on  them  just  to  see  if  he  will  wince.  He  always  winces.  He 
will  not  speak  all  supper  time.  After  supper  it  is  the  nymph’s 
turn  to  be  cross,  and  Voltaire  shows  the  visitors  his  globes  while 
she  sits  sulking  in  a chair,  pretending  to  be  asleep. 

What  an  old,  old  story  it  is ! What  a weary,  dull,  aggra- 
vating old  story ! and  what  a happy  world  it  might  be  still  if  all 
the  miseries  men  carefully  manufacture  for  themselves  were  taken 
out  of  it ! 

Yet  another  day,  and  there  is  a very  bitter  quarrel  about 
some  verses.  Emilie  says  she  has  written  them.  Voltaire  does 
not  believe  it.  They  both  lose  their  tempers,  and  it  is  even  said 
Voltaire  takes  a knife  from  the  table  and  threatens  her  with  it, 
crying,  ‘ Do  not  look  at  me  with  your  squinting,  haggard  eyes  ! * 
Perhaps  the  story  is  exaggerated.  It  is  to  be  hoped  so.  Madame 
de  Graffigny  speaks  too  of  Voltaire’s  wretched  health ; of  his 
system  of  doctoring  and  starving  himself ; of  his  disposition  at 
once  kind,  nervous,  and  petulant.  He  told  her  one  day,  she  says, 
that  Emilie  was  a terrible  woman  who  had  no  ‘ flexibility  dans  le 
cceur  ’ although  that  heart  was  good.  The  Graffigny  adds  on 
her  own  account  that  it  was  not  possible  to  be  more  ‘ spied  * 
than  Voltaire  was,  or  to  have  less  liberty.  It  must  indeed  be 
remembered  that  the  Graffigny  was  speaking  of  a woman  of  whose 
superior  powers  she  was  always  jealous,  and  whom  she  had  learnt 
to  hate.  Emilie  had  at  least  one  great  good  quality : she  never 
abused  other  women  behind  their  backs. 

It  has  been  said  that  lovers’  quarrels  are  but  the  renewal  of 
love.  There  was  never  a falser  word.  Every  quarrel  is  a blot 
on  a fair  page ; forgiveness  may  erase  it,  but,  at  the  best,  the 
mark  of  the  erasure  is  there  for  ever  and  the  page  wears  thin. 
Perhaps  Voltaire  and  Madame  du  Chatelet  acted  on  the  dan- 
gerous assumption  that,  since  they  could  be  reconciled  to-morrow, 
it  was  no  matter  if  they  quarrelled  to-day.  Their  attachment 
had  now  lasted  not  quite  five  years.  It  lingered  nearly  another 
ten.  Every  day  Emilie  drew  the  cords  by  which  her  lover  was 
bound  to  her  tighter — and  a little  tighter  still ; until  that 
dramatic  moment  when  she  cut  them  for  ever.  As  for  Voltaire, 


jEt.  45] 


PLEASURE  AT  CIREY 


109 


he  still  warmly  admired  her  genius  ; wrote  her  verses  ; forgave 
her  temper,  and  held  himself  unalterably  hers. 

The  life  at  Cirey — already  the  subject  of  a burlesque  in 
Paris — was  not  what  he  had  dreamed  it  might  be.  He  was 
himself  hasty,  capricious,  not  easy  to  live  with.  But  he  was 
also  most  generous,  most  affectionate,  and  most  forgiving.  And 
faithful  to  the  end. 


110 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1739 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  AFFAIR  DESFONTAINES 

In  1724  when  Voltaire  was  thirty  years  old  and  in  Paris,  Theriot 
had  introduced  to  him  Desfontaines,  then  a journalist,  and  an 
ex-abbe.  Their  acquaintance  was  of  the  slightest.  It  had  lasted 
only  a few  weeks  when  Desfontaines  was  accused  of  an  abomi- 
nable crime  (then  punished  by  burning),  arrested,  and  cast  into 
the  Bicetre.  The  impulsive  Voltaire  must  needs  get  up  off  a sick 
bed,  travel  to  Fontainebleau,  and  throw  himself  at  the  feet  of  the 
influential  Madame  de  Prie  and  obtain  Desfontaines*  discharge — 
on  the  sole  condition  that  he  should  not  live  in  Paris.  Not 
content  with  this  good  office,  he  obtained  from  his  friend  Madame 
de  Bernieres  the  permission  for  Desfontaines  to  reside  on  her 
estates.  Finally,  he  procured  the  revocation  of  the  edict  of 
banishment.  Desfontaines  could  live  in  Paris  and  pursue  his 
calling  as  before.  All  this  for  a man  he  hardly  knew,  who  was 
an  ex-priest,  and  a very  bad  writer,  if  not  a very  bad  man. 
was  generous,  unnecessary,  and  imprudent.  In  brief,  it  was 
Voltaire. 

He  might  have  expected  gratitude.  He  did  expect  it. 
Desfontaines  wrote  him  a letter  of  warm  thanks.  Eleven  years 
later  he  was  scoffing  in  a weekly  Parisian  paper  at  Newtonianism, 
as  revealed  to  the  French  in  Voltaire’s  ‘ English  Letters.’  Then 
he  must  translate  the  ‘ Essay  on  Epic  Poetry,’  which  Voltaire  had 
written  in  English,  into  French,  very  badly,  so  that  the  tireless 
author  felt  the  necessity  of  re-translating  it  himself.  Then, 
forsooth,  M.  l’Abbe  must  damn  with  faint  praise  ‘ Charles  XII.’ 
and  the  ‘Henriade.*  Even  a sensitive  Voltaire  could  only  laugh 
at  bites  from  such  a miserable  gnat.  ‘ I am  sorry  I saved 
him  ’ he  wrote  lightly  in  1735.  ‘ It  is  better  to  burn  a priest 
than  to  bore  the  public.  If  I had  left  him  to  roast  I should  have 


Mt.  45] 


THE  AFFAIR  DESFONTAINES 


111 


spared  the  world  many  imbecilities.’  But  even  a gnat  may  hurt 
if  it  sting  often  and  long  enough.  The  early  bliss  of  Cirey  was 
disturbed  by  that  petty  malice.  Now  in  one  way,  now  in  another, 
Desfontaines  showed  the  truth  of  the  shrewd  saying  that  the 
offender  never  pardons.  The  gnat  bites  grew  feverish  and 
swollen.  Voltaire  had  reason  to  believe,  though  he  still  found  it 
hard  to  believe,  that  Desfontaines  was  in  league  with  those  other 
enemies  of  his,  Jore  and  J.  B.  Rousseau.  Was  it  possible? 
Could  there  be  such  ingratitude  in  the  vilest  thing  that  lived  ? It 
is  to  the  credit  of  Voltaire’s  character,  that  he  gave  his  abbe  the 
benefit  of  the  doubt  till  there  was  doubt  no  longer.  It  was  in 
1786  he  wrote  that  memorable  ‘I  hear  that  Desfontaines  is 
unhappy,  and  from  that  moment  I forgive  him.’  And  the  Thing 
stung  again  in  a criticism  on  Voltaire’s  ‘ Elements  of  Newton  * — 
meant  to  be  offensive.  He  was  again  forgiven.  Then  he  stung 
once  more,  and  turned  his  benefactor  into  the  liveliest,  keenest, 
deadliest  foe  that  ever  man  had. 

When  Algarotti  was  at  Cirey  in  the  November  of  1735 
Voltaire  had  addressed  to  him  a few  gay  and  graceful  lines,  meant 
only  for  his  own  eye,  and  in  which  the  real  nature  of  the  relation- 
ship between  the  poet  and  Madame  du  Chatelet  was  plainly 
acknowledged.  The  verses  fell  into  the  hands  of  Desfontaines. 
He  wrote  to  ask  permission  to  publish  them  in  his  journal. 
Publish  them  ! If  all  the  world  knew  that  Voltaire  was  Emilie’s 
lover,  all  the  world  had  at  least  the  decency  of  feeling  to  pretend 
that  it  knew  nothing  of  the  kind.  Publish  them  ! Voltaire, 
Emilie — nay,  the  dull  bonhomme  himself — protested  passionately. 
Publish  them  ! Not  for  a kingdom ! But  they  were  published. 
And  Voltaire  woke  to  revenge. 

He  would  have  been  a worse  man  than  he  was  if  every  bitter 
feeling  in  his  soul  had  not  been  stirred  now.  He  was  always 
acutely  sensitive  to  any  slight  put  on  his  mistress’s  name,  honour, 
intellect — on  anything  that  belonged  to  her.  If  he  was  a good 
fighter  when  he  was  roused  on  his  own  account,  he  was  a ten 
times  better  fighter  when  he  was  roused  on  hers.  He  was  roused 
now.  And  he  wrote  the  ‘ Preservatif.’ 

It  begins  by  a collection  of  all  the  slips,  mistakes,  misstatements, 
printer’s  errors  and  illiteracies  which  he  was  able  to  find  in  two 
hundred  numbers  of  Desfontaines’  weekly  paper  which  was  called 


112 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1739 


‘ Observations  on  New  Books.’  They  were  grouped  together  with 
all  a Voltaire’s  ability — never  a point  missed,  and  so  arranged  as 
to  make  M.  l’Abbe  supremely  ridiculous.  The  ‘ Preservatif  ’ 
purported  to  be  by  a Chevalier  de  Mouhy,  a real  person.  At  the 
end,  the  Chevalier  presents  to  the  public  a letter  he  has  received 
from  M.  de  Voltaire  giving  the  whole  history  of  the  Desfontaines 
affair  in  1724 — only  not  mentioning  the  nature  of  the  crime  of 
which  the  abbe  had  been  accused. 

The  ‘ Preservatif  ’ ran  through  Paris  at  the  end  of  1738  as 
such  a pamphlet  would.  With  it,  there  ran  a deadly  epigram, 
and  then  a caricature,  with  another  epigram  beneath.  Neither 
epigrams  nor  caricature  would  be  tolerated  by  a decent  age.  They 
were  all  from  the  pen  of  M.  de  Voltaire.  They  told  the  nature  of 
the  abbe’s  crime.  They  were  a shameful  weapon,  shamefully 
used  : and  most  deadly.  Voltaire  gave  Madame  de  Graffigny  the 
4 Preservatif  ’ to  read.  To  mention  the  name  of  Desfontaines  to 
him  had  soon  the  same  effect  as  a red  flag  on  a bull.  He  was 
beside  himself  when  he  thought  of  the  man’s  base  treachery 
and  ingratitude.  He  was  beside  himself  when  he  wrote  the 
epigrams  and  drew  the  caricature.  It  is  their  only  excuse.  They 
need  one. 

He  also  wrote  against  Desfontaines,  anonymously,  a little 
comedy  called  ‘ L’Envieux  ’ : but  it  was  never  played. 

On  that  Christmas  Day  of  1788,  Madame  du  Chatelet  received 
a document  by  the  post.  She  read  it  alone  and  said  nothing 
about  it  to  Voltaire.  Whatever  else  she  was,  she  was  a woman 
of  very  strong  sense  and  very  just  judgment.  The  document  she 
had  received  was  the  ‘ Voltairomanie  ’ by  Desfontaines — the  retort 
to  the  ‘Preservatif  ’ — the  blasphemous  shriek  of  a lunatic— ‘ the 
howl  of  a mad  dog.’  She  herself  wrote  a reply  to  it — still  pre- 
served. Voltaire  must  not  see  it ! His  health  was  wretched  as 
ever.  He  had  just  had  an  access  of  fever.  He  was  acutely 
sensitive.  She  did  right  to  hide  it  from  him.  He  was  not  less 
considerate.  He  had  also  received  a copy  of  that  ‘ gross  libel  ’ 
and  was  hiding  it  from  her . There  must  have  been  something  good 
in  the  feeling  these  two  people  had  for  each  other — in  spite  of 
quarrels  and  bickerings  and  the  testimony  of  all  the  old  women 
visitors  in  the  world — they  were  so  anxious  to  save  each  other 
pain.  They  discovered  their  mutual  deception  on  New  Year’s 


JEt.  45] 


THE  AFFAIR  DESFONTAINES 


113 


Day  1739  and  were  the  easier  for  being  able  to  talk  over  the  affair 
together. 

The  ‘ Voltairomanie  ’ is  too  savage  to  be  sane.  It  brought 
that  old  accusation  against  Voltaire — a lack  of  personal  courage. 
It  recalled  the  affair  of  the  Bridge  of  Sevres  and  the  affair  of 
Rohan  in  terms  which  practice  had  made  perfect  in  falsehood  and 
offensiveness.  It  declared  Voltaire  liar  as  well  as  coward.  In 
the  1 Preservatif  ’ he  had  said  that  Theriot  had  shown  him  a libel 
Desfontaines  had  written  against  his  benefactor,  while  Desfon- 
taines  was  staying  with  the  Bernieres  at  Riviere  Bourdet  and  only 
just  released,  by  that  benefactor’s  efforts,  from  the  Bicetre.  ‘ And 
behold  ! ’ says  Desfontaines  in  the  ‘Voltairomanie,’  ‘M.  Theriot 
has  been  obliged  to  deny  all  knowledge  of  the  affair.’ 

Cirey  at  first  was  pretty  calm,  even  under  the  matchless 
audacity  of  this  last  statement.  Theriot  had  been  staying  at 
Cirey  last  October  and  had  told  with  his  own  lips  that  very  story 
just  as  Voltaire  had  told  it  in  the  ‘ Preservatif.’  Voltaire  did  not 
take  the  matter  so  much  to  heart  as  Madame  du  Chatelet  had 
feared.  He  decided  at  once  to  treat  Desfontaines’  attack  as  a 
criminal  libel,  and  to  take  legal  proceedings  against  him.  He  had 
witnesses  as  to  the  truth  of  his  story.  Madame  de  Bernieres 
herself  was  one  of  them  and  prepared  to  write  the  most  violent 
letters  on  behalf  of  a friend.  And  Theriot — Theriot  whom 
Voltaire  had  made,  loved,  and  trusted — why,  Theriot  had  nothing 
to  do  but  tell  his  tale  as  he  had  told  it  in  letters  to  Voltaire  and 
over  the  Cirey  supper-table  last  autumn. 

And  Theriot  never  uttered  a word.  How  hardly  and  slowly 
the  conviction  of  his  treachery  took  possession  of  Voltaire’s  mind, 
there  is  evidence  in  his  letters  to  show.  Theriot  false  ! Theriot 
time-server,  coward,  frightened  of  the  sting  of  a Desfontaines — 
impossible ! The  softest  spot  in  Voltaire’s  heart  was  for  this 
easy-going  ne’er-do-weel  who  had  been  the  friend  of  his  youth — 
confidant  and  intimate  for  five-and- twenty  years.  Another  man 
convinced  of  such  a baseness  as  that,  would  have  shaken  the 
creature  off — flung  himself  free  of  the  traitor  who  had  eaten  his 
bread,  accepted  his  money,  lived  on  his  fame,  fattened  on  his 
benefits — and  denied  him. 

And  Voltaire  wrote  pleading,  persuading,  imploring:  coun- 
selling repentance,  eager  to  forgive : as  a woman  might  have 

i 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


114 


[1739 


written  to  a scapegrace  son  whose  sin  she  knows,  whose  refor- 
mation she  hopes,  and  whom  she  must  needs  love  for  ever. 

‘ Will  you  not  have  the  courage  to  avow  publicly  what  you 
have  written  to  me  so  many  times  ? . . . My  honour,  your 
honour,  the  public  interest  demand  . . . that  you  should  own 
that  this  miserable  Desfontaines  did  write  an  abominable  libel 
called  the  “ Apology  of  Sieur  Voltaire”  and  had  it  printed  at 
Rouen,  and  that  you  showed  it  me  at  Riviere  Bourdet.’ 

‘ I am  your  friend  of  twenty  years.  ...  Will  it  be  to  your 
honour  to  have  renounced  me  and  the  truth  for  a Desfontaines  ? ’ 

4 Once  again,  do  not  listen  to  anyone  who  will  counsel  you 
to  drink  your  champagne  gaily  and  forget  all  else.  Drink,  but 
fulfil  the  sacred  duties  of  friendship.’ 

‘Make  reparation,  there  is  still  time.’ 

‘ Everybody  helps  me  but  you.  Everyone  has  done  their 
duty,  save  you  only.’  And  at  last,  ‘ All  is  forgotten,  if  you  know 
how  to  love.’ 

There  are  many  such  letters  of  the  early  da,ys  of  this  year 
1789 — generous  and  pathetic  enough.  It  was  certainly  Voltaire’s 
interest  to  make  Theriot  speak  the  truth.  But  it  may  be  believed 
that  it  was  Voltaire’s  heart  that  was  hurt  by  his  silence.  Emilie 
wrote  to  the  false  friend,  imploring : so  did  the  easy-going 
Marquis,  and  the  fat  lady  watered  her  letter  with  her  tears.  The 
affair  would  not  have  been  Voltaire’s  if  he  had  left  a single  stone 
unturned.  Madame  du  Chatelet  wrote  for  him  to  obtain  the 
influence  of  his  prince — Frederick  of  Prussia.  And  all  the 
wretched  Theriot  would  say  was,  that  if  the  episode  had  occurred, 
he  had  forgotten  all  about  it.  Madame  de  Graffigny  recorded 
how,  when  she  was  at  Cirey  in  that  February  of  1789,  Voltaire 
received  letters  which  threw  him  into  a sort  of  convulsions,  and 
Emilie  came  into  her  guest’s  room  (‘  with  tears  in  her  eyes  as 
big  as  her  fist  ’)  to  say  the  comedy  they  were  to  have  played 
must  be  put  off.  The  Graffigny  was  too  graphic  a writer  to  be 
literally  accurate.  But  there  is  no  wonder  if  Voltaire  and 
Madame  were  greatly  agitated  and  harassed  as  to  what  course 
to  pursue  next.  The  mission  which  took  Madame  de  Champ- 
bonin,  who  must  certainly  have  been  one  of  the  most  good- 
natured  women  who  ever  breathed,  to  Paris  in  January  1789  was 
to  try  the  weight  of  her  moral  influence  on  Theriot.  And  at 


2En.  45] 


THE  AFFAIR  DESFONTAINES 


115 


last  the  wretched  creature,  buffeted  on  all  sides  by  letters  at  once 
heart-breaking,  entreating,  and  indignant,  did  so  far  repent  of 
his  treachery  as  to  eat  his  words  and  consent  to  appear  in  some 
sort  as  the  accuser  of  Desfontaines. 

And  now  Voltaire,  having  won  his  Theriot,  must  move  heaven 
and  earth  that  in  all  points  his  libel  suit  may  be  carried  to  a 
successful  issue.  It  was  the  custom  of  that  day  for  as  many  of 
the  complainant’s  friends  as  possible  to  appear  before  the  magis- 
trate when  the  suit  was  brought — just  to  see  how  they  could 
influence  impartial  justice.  ‘ Nothing  produces  so  great  an  effect 
on  a judge’s  mind  ’ the  plaintiff  in  the  present  case  wrote  off 
plainly  to  Moussinot  ‘ as  the  attendance  of  a large  number  of 
relatives.  . . . Justice  is  like  the  kingdom  of  Heaven.  The 
violent  take  it  by  force.’  Voltaire  had,  then,  not  a friendly 
acquaintance  in  Paris  who  was  not  to  be  roused  to  help  him.  It 
was  judged  best  that  he  himself  should  remain  at  Cirey.  So 
Moussinot  became  his  agent,  and  a very  active  agent  he  had  to 
be.  He  was  to  hire  carriages  for  the  friends.  He  was  to  pay 
their  expenses.  All  other  business  was  to  go  to  the  winds.  He 
was  to  search  out  nephew  Mignot — Madame  Denis’s  brother — 
so  that  he  might  be  useful  in  stirring  up  his  relatives.  He  was 
conjured  to  pursue  the  affair  ‘ avec  la  derniere  vivacite.’  1 No 
ifs,  no  huts  : nothing  is  difficult  to  friendship  ’ the  energetic 
Voltaire  wrote  cheerfully.  The  Marquis  du  Chatelet  was  sent 
up  to  Paris  to  see  what  he  could  do.  Voltaire’s  old  school 
friends,  the  d’Argensons  and  d’Argental,  were  not  a little  active. 
Prince  Frederick  wrote  influential  letters  to  his  Court  at  home. 
Paris  was  in  a ferment.  Europe  itself  was  interested.  It  was  a 
cause  celebre  of  quite  extraordinary  vivacity.  Through  January, 
February,  and  March  of  1739  Voltaire  himself  was  working 
feverishly  at  Cirey.  He  rained  letters  on  his  friends.  He  wrote 
anonymous  ones  on  Desfontaines  to  be  circulated  in  Paris,  not 
at  all  decent  and  very  much  to  the  taste  of  the  age.  He  was 
certainly  a matchless  foe.  He  thought  of  everything.  The 
resources  of  his  mind  were  as  wonderful  as  its  energy.  He  had 
the  gift  of  making  other  people  very  nearly  as  enthusiastic  as  he 
was  himself.  To  read  his  letters  of  this  time,  in  cold  blood  one 
hundred  and  sixty  years  after,  stirs  the  pulses  still.  The  most 
apathetic  reader  himself  feels  for  the  moment  Voltaire’s  dancing 

i 2 


116 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1739 


impatience  for  revenge,  his  hot  anxiety  for  fear  miserable  Theriot 
should  be  false  at  the  last  after  all,  his  throbbing,  vivid  deter- 
mination that  he  shall  be  true. 

The  vigour  of  the  man  seems  to  have  worn  out  at  last  even 
the  malice  of  his  enemies.  Desfontaines  was  told  that  he  must 
disavow  his  ‘ Voltairomanie  ’ — or  go  to  prison.  So  the  honour- 
able magistrate  drew  out  a formula  in  which  the  honourable 
Desfontaines  repudiated  with  horror,  and  in  sufficiently  servile 
terms,  all  idea  of  his  being  the  author  of  that  blasphemy  and 
expressed  ‘ sentiments  of  esteem  ’ for  M.  de  Voltaire ! The 
whole  case  may  be  said  to  have  rained  lies.  Everybody  lied. 
Desfontaines’  final  lie  was  ‘ done  in  Paris,  this  4th  of  April  1739.’ 
Moussinot  was  commissioned  to  give  Madame  de  Champbonin 
two  hundred  francs — which,  to  be  sure,  she  deserved — and  one 
hundred  to  the  needy  and  complaisant  Mouhy,  who  had  been 
dubbed  the  author  of  the  ‘ Preservatif,’  ‘ telling  him  you  have  no 
more.’ 

The  buffeting  of  that  storm  left  Voltaire  panting,  feeble,  and 
exhausted.  4 There  are  some  men  by  whom  it  is  glorious  to  be 
hated  ’ was  an  axiom  of  his  own.  Desfontaines  was  certainly 
one  of  them.  But  Desfontaines’  hatred  had  power  to  the  end  of 
his  life  to  rouse  him  io  a frenzy  of  indignation.  ‘ Take  honour 
from  me  and  my  life  is  done  ’ had  not,  alas  ! been  the  spirit  of 
either  defendant  or  plaintiff  in  this  case.  But  it  had  one  good 
thing  about  it,  though  only  one, — Voltaire’s  dealing  with  Theriot. 
Theriot  was  forgiven  as  if  Voltaire  had  been  the  Christian  he 
was  not. 

On  May  8,  1739,  the  two  du  Chatelets,  Koenig  (Madame’s 
mathematical  professor — a very  good  mathematician  and  a very 
dull  man),  M.  de  Voltaire  and  suite  left  Cirey  for  Brussels. 
Voltaire  had  been  at  Cirey  nearly  five  years.  He  had  learnt  to 
love  its  solitude,  its  calm,  its  facilities  for  hard  work.  He  had 
learnt  to  dread  towns  if  he  had  not  learnt  to  love  Nature.  But 
Emilie  wanted  a change,  so  was  quite  sure  that  a journey  and  a 
different  air  were  the  very  things  for  her  lover’s  deplorable  health. 
The  process  of  reasoning  is  not  unusual.  Was  not  there  too  a 
certain  du  Chatelet  lawsuit,  of  which  they  were  always  talking, 
which  was  already  eighty  years  old  and  could  only  be  settled  in 
Brussels  ? So  to  Brussels  they  went. 


JE t.  45] 


THE  AFFAIR  DESFONTAINES 


117 


Voltaire  had  to  be  dragged  away  from  a tragedy,  from 
‘ Louis  XIV./  from  elaborate  corrections  which  he  was  making 
to  the  ‘ Henriade/  and  from  the  study  of  Demosthenes  and 
Euclid.  Madame  had  an  iron  constitution  herself,  and  could 
be  at  a dance  all  night  and  up  at  six  the  next  morning  studying 
mathematics — for  fear  Koenig  should  find  her  a dunce.  En  route 
for  Brussels,  they  stopped  at  Valenciennes,  where  they  were 
entertained  with  a ball,  a ballet,  and  a comedy.  They  had  no 
sooner  reached  their  quiet  house  in  the  Rue  de  la  Grosse  Tour, 
Brussels,  than  they  left  it  to  visit  some  du  Chatelet  relations,  at 
Beringen,  ten  miles  distant,  and  at  Hain.  They  were  back  in 
Brussels  by  June  17.  The  city  put  herself  en  fete  for  them. 
J.  B.  Rousseau,  who  lived  there,  was  ‘no  more  spoken  of  than 
if  he  were  dead.’  Anyone  with  a human  nature  must  have  been 
pleased  at  that . Voltaire  exerted  himself  and  had  a beautiful 
garden-party  with  fireworks  one  of  those  fine  days  to  the  Due 
d’Aremberg  and  all  the  other  polite  society  in  Brussels.  Of 
course  he  must  needs  superintend  the  firework  preparations  him- 
self. Two  of  his  unfortunate  workmen  fell  from  the  scaffolding 
on  to  him,  killing  themselves,  and  nearly  killing  him.  The 
event  affected  him  not  a little. 

Then  the  Due  d’Aremberg  invited  his  entertainers  to  stay 
with  him  at  Enghien.  The  gardens  were  so  exquisite  that  they 
almost  reconciled  even  a Voltaire  and  a Marquise  du  Chatelet  to 
a house  where  there  was  not  a single  book  except  those  they  had 
brought  themselves.  They  played  brelan  : they  played  comedy  : 
and  the  author  of  the  ‘ Century  of  Louis  XIV.’  listened  to  the 
Duke’s  anecdotes  of  the  days  when  he  had  served  under  Prince 
Eugene.  They  were  back  in  Brussels  by  July  18.  Useful 
Moussinot  was  there  too.  On  September  4,  1789,  and  after  an 
absence  from  it  of  more  than  three  years,  Voltaire  found  himself 
again  in  Paris. 

If  he  had  not  wished  to  move  to  Brussels,  he  had  much  less 
wished  to  move  to  Paris.  But  ‘the  divine  Emilie  found  it 
necessary  for  her  to  start  for  Paris,  et  me  voild.’  That  was  the 
situation.  They  were  both  immediately  engulfed  in  a social 
whirlpool — suppers,  operas  and  theatres,  endless  visitors  and 
calls — ‘ not  an  instant  to  oneself,  neither  time  to  write,  to  think, 
or  to  sleep.’  Voltaire  wrote  rather  sorrowfully  of  the  dreadful 


118  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1739-40 

ennui  of  these  perpetual  amusements  to  placid  old  Champbonin, 
at  Cirey.  As  for  Madame  du  Chatelet — 

Son  esprit  est  tr&s  philosophe, 

Mais  son  cceur  aime  les  pompons 

her  lover  had  written  of  her  to  Sade  in  1733,  in  perhaps  the 
most  apt  and  descriptive  couplet  ever  made.  She  was  enjoying 
the  pompons  now.  Paris  was  en  fete  for  the  marriage  of 
Louis  XV.’s  eldest  daughter  to  a prince  of  Spain.  Madame  was 
as  energetic  in  her  amusements  as  she  was  energetic  in  acquiring 
knowledge.  She  gratified  her  tastes  for  dress,  talk  and  gaiety 
and  her  taste  for  mathematics  all  together.  Koenig  had  come  to 
Paris  with  them.  Poor  Voltaire  wrote  of  her,  not  a little  dolo- 
rously and  enviously,  ‘ Madame  du  Chatelet  is  quite  different ; 
she  can  always  think — has  always  power  over  her  mind.’  But 
to  compose  plays  in  this  tumult ! — it  was  impossible  to  the  man 
at  this  time  at  any  rate.  His  health  was  really  as  wretched  as 
Madame  said.  It  is  not  a little  characteristic  of  him  to  find  him 
ill  in  bed  being  copiously  bled  and  doctored  on  Sunday,  and 
gaily  arranging  a supper  party  on  Thursday.  But  even  his 
versatility  and  courage,  even  the  good-humoured  patience  with 
which  he  watched  Emilie  enjoying  herself,  were  not  inexhaustible. 
He  had  two  plays  to  be  produced  in  Paris.  He  did  not  wait  to 
see  either  of  them  even  rehearsed.  Early  in  November  1739  he 
and  Madame  du  Chatelet  were  spending  a week  or  two  at  Cirey 
on  their  way  back  to  Brussels. 


.ZEt.  45-46] 


119 


CHAPTER  XII 

FLYING  VISITS  TO  FKEDERICK 

Since  that  first  letter  of  the  August  of  1786  the  correspondence 
and  friendship  between  Voltaire  and  Prince  Frederick  of  Prussia 
had  grown  more  and  more  enthusiastic.  The  devoted  pair  had 
from  the  first  interspersed  abstract  considerations  on  the  soul 
and  ‘ the  right  divine  of  kings  to  govern  wrong  * with  the  most 
flattering  personalities  and  hero-worship.  Each  letter  grew  more 
fervent  and  more  adoring  than  the  last.  By  1740  Voltaire  was 
Frederick’s  ‘dearest  friend,’  ‘charming  divine  Voltaire,’  ‘sublime 
spirit,  first  of  thinking  beings.’  In  Voltaire’s  vocabulary  Frede- 
rick was  Marcus  Aurelius,  the  Star  of  the  North,  not  a king 
among  kings  but  a king  among  men.  Voltaire  dreamt  of  his 
prince  ‘ as  one  dreams  of  a mistress,’  and  found  his  hero’s 
Prussian-French  so  beautiful  ‘ that  you  must  surely  have  been 
born  in  the  Versailles  of  Louis  XIV.,  had  Bossuet  and  Fenelon 
for  schoolmasters,  and  Madame  de  Sevigne  for  nurse.’ 

Not  to  be  outdone,  Frederick  announced  that  his  whole  creed 
was  one  God  and  one  Voltaire. 

There  was  indeed  no  extravagance  of  language  which  this 
Teutonic  heir-apparent  of  six  or  seven  and  twenty  and  the  brilliant 
withered  Frenchman  of  six-and-forty  did  not  commit.  They  did 
adore  each  other.  For  Voltaire,  Frederick  was  Concordia,  the 
goddess  of  Peace — the  lightbringer— the  hope  of  the  world — 
veiled  in  the  golden  mist  of  imagination,  unseen,  unknown,  and 
so  of  infinite  possibility  and  capable  of  all  things.  While  heir- 
apparent  Frederick  was  quite  shrewd  enough  to  know  that  a 
Voltaire  might  add  lustre  even  to  a king’s  glory,  and  bo  as 
valuable  a friend  as  he  was  a dangerous  foe. 

By  1740  and  the  return  of  Voltaire  and  the  Marquise  from 
Paris  to  Brussels,  Frederick  had  begun  compiling  the  most 


120 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1740 


sumptuous  and  beautiful  edition  de  luxe  of  the  ‘ Henriade  * ever 
seen.  He  counselled  his  author  friend  to  omit  a too  daring  couplet 
here  and  there,  and  his  author  would  have  none  of  such  prudence. 
Then  Frederick  must  turn  writer  himself,  and  sent  his  Voltaire  a 
prose  work  called  ‘ Anti-Machiavelli  * and  an  ‘ Ode  on  Flattery.’ 

‘ A prince  who  writes  against  flattery  is  as  singular  as  a pope 
who  writes  against  infallibility,’  said  Voltaire.  The  ‘Anti- 
Machiavelli  ’ is  a refutation  in  twenty-six  prosy  chapters  of  the 
entire  Machiavellian  system.  Voltaire  called  it  ‘ the  only  book 
worthy  of  a king  for  fifteen  hundred  years,’  and  declared  it  should 
be  ‘ the  catechism  of  kings  and  their  ministers.’  He  wept  tears 
of  admiration  over  it.  He  had  it  bound  and  printed.  He  wrote 
a preface  for  it.  His  transports  of  delight  were  sincere  enough, 
no  doubt.  He  was  also  sincere  enough  to  criticise  it  to  Frederick 
pretty  freely,  and  to  recommend  6 almost  a king  ’ to  be  a little 
less  verbose,  and  to  cut  out  unnecessary  explanations.  It  must 
be  confessed  that  the  ‘ Anti-Machiavelli  ’ appears  a very  dull  and 
trite  composition  to-day,  and  that  the  beautiful  moral  sentiments 
on  the  iniquities  of  war  and  the  kingly  duty  of  keeping  peace  lose 
a good  deal  of  their  weight  when  one  knows  that  a very  few 
months  after  they  were  written  their  author  invaded  Silesia  and 
plunged  Europe  into  one  of  the  most  bloody  wars  in  history. 

But  when  Voltaire  waxed  enthusiastic  over  the  princely 
periods  at  Brussels  in  the  January  of  1740  he  had  no  premonition 
of  that  future.  Compared  with  other  royal  compositions  ‘ Anti- 
Machiavelli’  is  a masterpiece.  Even  to  one  of  the  shrewdest 
men  who  ever  breathed  it  might  well  have  given  hopes  that  its 
author  would  be  a king  not  as  other  kings,  a benefactor  and 
not  an  oppressor  of  humanity,  a defender  of  all  liberal  arts,  a 
safeguard  of  justice,  freedom,  and  civilisation.  Old  Frederick 
William  was  dying.  The  time  was  at  hand  when  his  son  might 
make  promise,  practice.  On  June  6,  1740,  he  wrote  to  Voltaire: 
‘ My  dear  friend,  my  fate  is  changed,  and  I have  been  present  at 
the  last  moments  of  a king,  at  his  agony  and  at  his  death  ’ ; and 
prayed  friend  Voltaire  to  regard  him  not  as  king  but  as  man. 
And  Voltaire  replied  to  him  as  ‘ Your  Humanity  ’ instead  of 
‘ Your  Majesty,’  and  saw  in  the  heavens  the  dawn  of  a golden 
day,  and  on  earth  all  things  made  new. 

On  July  19,  Voltaire  arrived  at  The  Hague  to  see  about 


Mt.  46] 


FLYING  VISITS  TO  FEEDEEICK 


121 


recasting  and  correcting  a new  edition  of  the  ‘ Anti-Machiavelli,’ 
now  being  printed  there.  There  were  certain  things  in  it  safe 
enough  for  a crown  prince  to  have  written  anonymously,  but 
hardly  prudent  to  appear  as  the  utterances  of  a king. 

Voltaire  was  quite  as  active  and  thorough  on  that  King’s 
behalf  as  on  his  own.  He  wasted  a whole  fortnight  of  his 
precious  time  on  Frederick’s  business  in  Holland.  He  had 
infinite  trouble  with  the  printer,  Van  Duren,  and  stooped  to 
trickery  (to  be  sure,  Voltaire  thought  it  no  abasement)  to  get  the 
necessary  alterations  made  in  the  royal  manuscript.  At  length 
this  most  indefatigable  of  beings  himself  brought  out  an  authorised 
version  of  the  4 Anti-Machiavelli.’  Voltaire’s  corrected  edition 
and  Frederick’s  original  version  both  appear  in  a Berlin  issue  of 
the  Works  of  King  Frederick  the  Great.  A comparison  of  the 
two  shows  the  versatile  Voltaire  to  be  the  most  slashing  and 
daring  of  editors.  He  cut  out,  as  imprudent,  as  much  as  thirty- 
two  printed  pages  of  the  royal  composition.  The  time  had  not 
yet  come  when  Frederick  was  grateful  for  such  a hewing  and  a 
hacking  as  that.  But  the  time  was  very  soon  to  come  when  he 
would  have  been  but  too  glad  if  Voltaire  had  flung  into  the  fire 
the  whole  of  4 Anti-Michiavelli,’  and  the  memory  thereof. 

The  friendship  between  editor  and  author  grew  apace,  mean- 
while, daily.  They  sent  each  other  presents  of  wine  and  infallible 
medicines.  Voltaire  had  an  escritoire,  designed  by  Martin, 
specially  made  in  Paris  for  Frederick’s  acceptance.  But  they  had 
long  discovered  that  the  handsomest  of  presents  and  the  most 
adoring  of  letters  were  but  a feeble  bridge  to  span  the  space  that 
separated  them,  and  the  question  of  a meeting,  long  and  repeatedly 
urged  by  Frederick,  became  imminent. 

Since  Frederick’s  first  letter  it  had  been  the  role  of  Madame 
du  Chatelet  to  stand  by  and  watch  a comedy  in  which  she  was  not 
offered  a part.  To  be  a passive  spectator  was  little  to  the  taste  of 
her  supremely  energetic  temperament.  It  was  not  long  before 
she  learnt  to  be  jealous.  She  was  a great  deal  too  clever  not  to 
know  from  very  early  times  that,  but  for  her,  Voltaire  would  have 
been  a satellite  to  the  Star  of  the  North,  instead  of  to  any  woman 
in  the  world.  When  his  friendship  with  Frederick  began  he  was 
no  doubt  true  to  her  because  he  wished  to  be  true.  But  how  short 
a time  was  it  before  he  was  true  only  from  a sense  of  duty ! 


122 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1740 


Madame  du  Chatelet,  with  her  vigorous  passions,  was  not  the 
woman  to  be  satisfied  with  a cold,  conscientious  affection  like 
that.  She  must  be  first — everything ! Her  woman's  instinct 
told  her  to  mistrust  Frederick,  and  she  did  mistrust  him.  Then 
the  mistrust  grew  to  dislike ; dislike  to  hate ; and  hate,  war  to 
the  knife. 

Oh  what  beautiful  compliments  that  pair  exchanged  through 
Voltaire,  or  directly  in  the  most  flattering  letters  to  each  other — in 
those  four  years  between  1736  and  1740  ! Frederick  said  the  most 
charming  things  about  Emilie.  She  was  always  the  goddess,  the 
sublime,  the  divine.  Flattery  costs  so  little  and  may  buy  so  much. 

When  he  read  her  ‘ Essay  on  the  Propagation  of  Fire  ' he  wrote 
to  Voltaire  that  it  had  given  him  ‘ an  idea  of  her  vast  genius,  her 
learning — and  of  your  happiness.' 

Did  Madame  look  over  her  lover's  shoulder  and  smile  not 
a little  grimly  with  compressed  lips  at  those  last  words  ? ‘ Of 

your  happiness  ’ ! Very  well.  Leave  him  to  it  then.  What  can 
your  court  or  kingship  give  him  better  than  happiness,  after  all  ? 
It  is  to  be  feared  that  if  Emilie  had  rendered  Voltaire’s  life  ‘un 
peu  dure ' in  the  time  of  Madame  de  Graffigny  she  rendered  it 
much  harder  now,  and  that  there  was  not  much  question  of  real 
happiness  between  them.  To  be  fought  over  was  a much  more 
trying  position  for  a nature  like  Voltaire’s  than  to  be  one  of  the 
fighters.  And  there  is  no  hell  on  earth  like  that  made  by  a 
jealous  woman. 

Within  easy  reach  too,  in  tempting  sight,  were  the  pleasures 
of  a king's  congenial  society,  honours  to  which  a worldly-wise 
Voltaire  could  be  by  no  means  insensible.  Yet  in  almost  all  his 
letters  to  Frederick  he  reiterates  his  decision  that  he  will  not 
leave  his  mistress  ; that  he  is  bound  to  her  in  honour  and  grati- 
tude ; that  he  has  chosen  his  fate  and  must  abide  by  it. 

In  the  spring  of  1740  she  had  published  her  4 Institutions 
Physiques,'  in  which  she  now  championed  Leibnitz  against 
Newton,  as  Voltaire  had  championed  Newton  against  Leibnitz. 
Frederick  went  into  ecstasies  over  it — to  its  authoress  ; and  damned 
it  with  very  faint  praise  indeed  to  his  confidant,  Jordan.  Madame 
may  have  suspected  that  perfidy.  King  Frederick,  when  he  became 
king  in  that  May  of  1740,  guessed  he  had  met  his  match  in  that 
resolute  woman  whom  he  addressed  variously  as  4 Venus  Newton  a 


^Et.  46] 


FLYING  VISITS  TO  FREDERICK 


123 


and  the  ‘ Queen  of  Sheba.’  If  Frederick  wanted  to  see  Voltaire — 
well,  then,  he  must  have  Venus  too.  Of  that,  Venus  was  deter- 
mined. Voltaire  returned  to  Brussels  from  The  Hague  in  the 
early  days  of  August  1740.  It  was  not  the  slightest  use  Frederick 
writing  to  him  on  the  5th  of  that  month  from  Berlin  : ‘ To  be 
frank  ...  it  is  Voltaire,  it  is  you,  it  is  my  friend  whom  I desire 
to  see,  and  the  divine  Emilie  with  all  her  divinity  is  only  an 
accessory  to  the  Newtonian  Apollo  ’ ; and  more  plainly  still  the 
next  day,  4 If  Emilie  must  come  with  Apollo,  I agree  ; although  I 
would  much  rather  see  you  alone.’  Madame  du  Chatelet  was  for 
Voltaire  a sovereign  far  more  absolute  than  any  on  earth.  He 
pulled  a very  wry  face,  shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  resigned 
himself  to  her  determination  with  as  much  good-humour  and 
nonchalance  as  he  could  compass.  It  was  arranged  that  Frederick 
should  meet  Voltaire  and  Venus  at  Antwerp  on  September  14, 
and  should  return  with  them  for  a brief  visit,  incognito , to  the 
du  Chatelet’s  hired  house  in  Brussels. 

One  can  fancy  the  baffled  rage  of  the  Marquise  when  at  the 
very  last  moment  the  news  arrived  that  that  subtle  Frederick  had 
artfully  developed  an  attack  of  ague  which  would  quite  prevent 
him  meeting  Emilie  at  Antwerp  and  Brussels,  but  need  be  no 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  Voltaire,  alone,  coming  to  see  his  sick 
friend  for  two  or  three  days  at  the  Chateau  of  Moyland,  near 
Cleves.  Even  Madame  du  Chatelet’s  jealousy  and  resource  could 
find  no  excuse  to  keep  her  lover  now.  He  went — feeling  no 
doubt  rather  guilty  and  very  glad  to  get  away — the  precise  sensa- 
tions of  a schoolboy  who  has  escaped  for  a day’s  holiday  from 
a very  exacting  master.  He  was  not  going  to  play  truant  for 
long  ! After  all,  Madame  had  been  dreadfully  exigeante ! One 
thinks  of  her  with  pity  somehow — Voltaire  thought  of  her  with 
something  very  like  pity  too — left  alone  in  Brussels,  beaten,  angry, 
and  restless,  and  adding  daily  to  an  already  magnificent  capital 
of  hatred  for  Frederick. 

That  meeting  at  Moyland  is  one  of  the  great  tableaux  of 
history.  Voltaire  himself  painted  it  in  letters  to  his  friends 
when  its  memory  was  green  and  delightful:  and  twenty  years 
after,  with  his  brush  dipped  in  darker  colours.  The  ague,  though 
convenient,  was  not  a sham.  Voltaire  found  Solomon,  Marcus 
Aurelius,  the  Star  of  the  North,  huddled  up  in  a blue  dressing- 


124 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1740 


gown  in  a wretched  little  bed  in  an  unfurnished  room,  shivering 
and  shaking  and  most  profoundly  miserable.  ‘ The  sublime  spirit 
and  the  first  of  thinking  beings’  sat  down  at  once  on  the  edge  of  the 
royal  pallet,  felt  the  King’s  pulse  and  suggested  remedies.  The 
day  was  Sunday,  September  11,  1740:  very  cold  and  gloomy,  as 
was  the  disused  chateau  itself.  It  is  said  Voltaire  recommended 
quinine.  Anyhow,  the  fit  passed,  and  by  the  evening  Frederick 
was  well  enough  to  join  a supper  of  the  gods. 

Three  men,  who  had  been  visitors  at  Cirey  and  were  all 
renowned  for  learning  or  brilliancy,  were  of  it — Maupertuis, 
Algarotti,  and  Kaiserling.  Frederick  forgot  his  ague,  and  Voltaire 
his  Marquise.  They  discussed  the  Immortality  of  the  Soul, 
Liberty,  Fate,  Platonics.  On  the  two  following  nights  the 
suppers  were  repeated.  At  one  of  them  Voltaire  declaimed  his 
new  tragedy  4 Mahomet.’  Frederick  wrote  of  him  just  after  as 
having  the  eloquence  of  Cicero,  the  smoothness  of  Pliny,  the 
wisdom  of  Agrippa,  and  spoke,  with  a more  literal  truth,  of  the 
astounding  brilliancy  of  his  conversation.  As  for  Voltaire,  he 
found  for  a brief  space  the  realisation  of  his  dream — the  incarna- 
tion of  his  ideal.  Here  was  the  philosopher  without  austerity 
and  with  every  charm  of  manner,  forgetting  he  was  a king  to  be 
more  perfectly  a friend.  Writing  after  twenty  years — after  strife 
and  bitterness — Voltaire  still  spoke  of  Frederick  as  being  at  that 
day  witty,  delightful,  flattering — aye,  still  felt  in  some  measure 
what  he  felt  in  fullest  measure  at  the  Chateau  of  Moyland  in 
1740,  the  siren  seduction  of  the  King’s  ‘ blue  eyes,  sweet  voice, 
charming  smile,  love  of  retirement  and  occupation,  of  prose  and 
of  verse.’  With  a mind  keenly  acute  and  searching,  Voltaire 
was  youthfully  susceptible  to  fascination.  He  had  to  the  end  a 
sort  of  boyish  vanity,  and  Frederick  greatly  admired  him.  But 
that  alone  would  not  account  for  the  fond  pride  and  affection 
with  which  he  regarded  this  young  King — and  which  might  have 
been  almost  the  partial  and  sanguine  love  of  a father  for  a promising 
son.  No  man  ever  wore  better  than  Frederick  the  Great  that  fine 
coat  called  Culture.  He  fitted  it  so  well  that  even  a shrewd 
Voltaire  thought  it  his  skin,  not  his  covering ; and  when  he  flung 
it  on  the  ground  and  trampled  on  it,  still  regretfully  loved  him — 
not  for  what  he  had  been,  but  for  what  he  had  seemed. 

The  three  days  came  to  an  end.  On  September  14  Frederick 


M t.  46] 


FLYING  VISITS  TO  FREDERICK 


125 


took  Maupertuis  to  Paradise,  or  Potsdam,  with  him,  and  con- 
demned Voltaire  to  Hell,  or  Holland  (this  is  how  Voltaire  put  it), 
where  he  was  to  stay  at  The  Hague  in  an  old  palace  belonging  to 
the  King  of  Prussia  and  complete  his  arrangements  for  the  publica- 
tion of  his  edition  of  the  ‘ Anti-Machiavelli.,  The  Marquise  was 
at  Fontainebleau  paving  the  way  for  Voltaire’s  return  to  Paris, 
and  writing  to  Frederick  to  ask  him  to  use  his  influence  to  win 
Cardinal  Fleury,  the  Prime  Minister’s,  favour,  for  ‘our  friend.’ 
Fleury  had  formerly  met  Voltaire  at  the  Villars’,  ‘ where  he  liked 
me  very  much  ’ ; but  that  liking  had  since  turned  to  dislike. 
Madame  worked  at  once  with  enthusiasm  and  with  wisdom — that 
rare  combination  of  qualities  which  can  accomplish  everything. 
She  said  herself,  not  a little  bitterly,  that  she  gave  her  lover  back 
in  three  weeks  all  he  had  laboriously  lost  in  six  years  : opened  to 
him  the  doors  of  the  Academy  ; restored  to  him  ministerial  favour. 
He  sent  a presentation  copy  of  the  ‘ Anti-Machiavelli  ’ to  Cardinal 
Fleury  presently,  and  the  powerful  Cardinal,  now  that  Voltaire 
was  a great  King’s  friend  and  the  active  Marquise  was  at  Court, 
suddenly  discovered  that  he  never  had  had  any  fault  but  youth. 
‘ You  have  been  young ; perhaps  you  were  young  a little  too  long  ’ — 
but  nothing  worse  than  that ; really  nothing.  The  two  exchanged 
flattering  letters.  Then  came  events  which  changed  the  face  of 
Europe.  On  October  20,  1740,  died  the  Emperor  Charles  VI. 
He  was  succeeded  by  Maria  Theresa  of  three-and-twenty.  The 
Powers  were  looking  hard  into  each  other’s  faces  to  see  if  peace 
or  war  were  written  there.  ‘The  slightest  twinkle  of  Fleury’s 
eyelashes  ’ was  hint  sufficient  for  this  daring  and  versatile  Vol- 
taire to  try  a new  role . When  he  started  off  to  Remusberg  on 
November  4 or  5,  1740,  to  pay  another  little  visit,  already 
arranged,  to  friend  Frederick,  he  went  not  only  as  a visitor,  but 
to  discover  the  pacific  or  bellicose  disposition  of  Anti-Machiavelli, 
who  had  already  written,  a little  oddly,  that  the  Emperor’s  death 
upset  all  his  peaceful  ideas. 

The  journey  from  The  Hague  to  Remusberg  took  a fortnight. 
Voltaire  had  as  companion  a man  called  Dumolard,  whom  Theriot 
had  recommended  for  the  post  of  Frederick’s  librarian.  Their 
travelling  carriage  broke  down  outside  Herford,  and  Voltaire 
entered  that  town  in  the  highly  picturesque  and  unpractical 
costume  of  his  day  on  one  of  the  carriage  horses.  ‘ Who 


126  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1740 

goes  there  ? ’ cried  the  sentinel.  4 Don  Quixote,’  answered 
Voltaire. 

Remusberg  was  en  fete  when  they  reached  it.  There  were 
suppers,  dances,  and  conversation,  a little  gambling,  delightful 
concerts — the  gayest  Court  in  the  world.  Frederick  played  on 
the  flute  and  was  infinitely  agreeable.  The  Margravine  of  Bay- 
reuth, his  sister,  was  of  the  party.  Voltaire  showed  Frederick 
Cardinal  Fleury’s  complimentary  letter  on  the  4 Anti-Machiavelli.’ 
There  was  no  change  on  the  King’s  face  as  he  read  it ; or  if  there 
was  a change,  it  escaped  even  a Voltaire.  If  Voltaire  had  been 
brilliant  at  Moyland  he  was  twice  as  brilliant  here — in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  he  could  only  describe  himself  to  Theriot  as  4 ill, 
active,  poet,  philosopher,  and  always  your  very  sincere  friend.’ 
He  busied  himself  in  procuring  for  that  faithless  person  a pension 
from  Frederick,  for  having  been  the  King’s  agent  in  Paris.  All 
the  time,  through  the  suppers  and  the  talk  and  the  parties,  he 
was  watching,  watching,  watching.  The  visit  lasted  six  days. 
Voltaire  had  never  in  his  life  tried  to  find  out  anything  for  so  long 
without  finding  it.  But  when  he  parted  from  Frederick  at 
Potsdam  he  had  not  the  faintest  suspicion  that  that  invasion  of 
Silesia  upon  which  the  King  was  to  start  in  twelve  days’  time  was 
even  a possibility. 

Frederick  pressed  his  guest  to  prolong  his  stay.  He  went  to 
Berlin  for  a brief  visit  to  pay  his  respects  to  the  King’s  mother, 
brother,  and  sisters ; but  left  there  on  December  2 or  8,  1740, 
and  then  returned  to  Potsdam  to  say  good-bye  to  his  royal  host— 
and  to  look  into  the  royal  heart,  if  that  might  be.  But  it  was  not 
to  be. 

Voltaire  was  anxious  to  be  back  in  Brussels  in  time  to  receive 
Madame  du  Chatelet  on  her  return  from  Paris,  where  her  husband 
had  just  bought  a fine  new  house.  He  wrote  a little  epigram  to 
his  host  before  he  left,  in  which  he  gaily  reproached  the  King  as 
a coquette  who  conquers  hearts  but  never  gives  her  own.  He  had 
been  at  least  astute  enough  to  divine  that  there  was  Something 
his  master  hid  from  him.  And  his  master  responded  with  a little 
badinage  on  that  other  coquette  who  was  drawing  Voltaire  to 
Brussels. 

They  parted  friends — and  warm  friends.  But  there  was  a 
highly  practical  side  to  both  their  characters  which  came  to  the 


Mt.  46] 


FLYING  VISITS  TO  FREDERICK 


127 


fore  when  Frederick  bade  Voltaire  send  him  the  bill  of  his  expenses 
at  The  Hague,  and  Voltaire  added  to  that  bill  the  expenses  of  the 
journey  to  Remusberg,  taken  at  Frederick’s  request.  It  was  a 
large  total — thirteen  hundred  ecus — but  it  was  not  an  unjust  one. 
It  has  been  happily  suggested  that  it  at  least  contained  no  charge 
for  Man’s  Time,  and  this  man’s  time  was  of  quite  exceptional 
value.  ‘ Five  hundred  and  fifty  crowns  a day  ’ grumbled  Frederick 
to  Jordan  ; ‘ that  is  good  pay  for  the  King’s  jester,  with  a 
vengeance.’  But  when  the  King’s  jester  is  a Voltaire,  the  King 
must  expect  to  pay  for  him.  That  was  Voltaire’s  view  of  the 
question,  no  doubt. 

A series  of  accidents  befell  him  on  his  journey  home.  He 
was  a whole  month  getting  from  Berlin  to  Brussels,  and  twelve 
days  of  the  time  ice-bound  in  a miserable  little  boat  after  leaving 
The  Hague.  In  a wretched  ship’s  cabin  he  worked  hard  on 
‘ Mahomet  ’ and  wrote  voluminous  letters. 

One  of  them,  dated  ‘ this  last  of  December  ’ 1740,  was  to 
Frederick — cordial,  flattering,  and  expansive.  Having  been 
dutiful  enough  to  tear  himself  away  from  ‘a  monarch  who 
cultivates  and  honours  an  art  which  I idolise  ’ for  a woman  ‘ who 
reads  nothing  but  Christianus  Wolffius,’  Voltaire  was  a little 
disposed  to  grudge  that  act  of  virtue,  and  to  make  the  most  of  it. 
He  was  anxious,  too,  to  prove  to  Frederick  that  he  had  left  him 
chiefly  to  finish  the  du  Chatelet  lawsuit — not  merely  ‘ to  sigh  like 
an  idiot  at  a woman’s  knees.’  ‘But,  Sire  . . . there  is  no 
obligation  I do  not  owe  her.  The  headdresses  and  the  petticoats 
she  wears  do  not  make  the  duty  of  gratitude  less  sacred.’  The 
last  cloud  of  illusion  must  have  been  dispelled  long  before  the 
Marquise  du  Chatelet’s  ex-lover  could  have  written  those  words. 

He  saw  her  now  not  only  as  she  was,  but  at  her  worst.  ‘ Men 
serve  women  kneeling  : when  they  get  on  their  feet  they  go  away.’ 
Shall  it  not  be  accounted  for  righteousness  to  a Voltaire  that  he 
got  on  his  feet  and  went  back  to  her  ? 


128 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1740-41 


CHAPTER  XIII 

TWO  PLAYS  AND  A FAILURE 

Before  Voltaire  reached  Brussels — nay,  before  he  had  written 
to  Frederick  that  letter  from  the  ice-bound  boat  off  the  coasts  of 
Zealand — he  had  received  one  of  the  greatest  mental  shocks  of 
his  life.  The  news  of  the  invasion  of  Silesia  came  upon  him 
like  a thunderclap.  This — after  the  4 Anti-Machiavelli  ’ ! This 
— after  all  they  had  hoped,  planned,  dreamed  ! Where  was  that 
smiling  kingdom,  Arcadia,  wherein  all  liberal  arts  were  to 
flourish,  where  were  to  be  for  ever  peace,  tolerance,  plenty? 
Where  indeed  ? But  Voltaire  was  nothing  if  not  recuperative. 
There  is  not  a single  instance  in  his  life  when  he  sat  down  and 
cried  over  spilt  milk.  He  was  disillusioned  now — and  bitterly 
disillusioned.  4 After  all,  he  is  only  a King/  he  wrote ; and 
again,  4 He  is  a King,  that  makes  one  tremble.  Time  will  show  ; ’ 
and  to  English  Falkener,  in  English,  4 My  good  friend  the  King 
of  Prussia,  who  wrote  so  well  against  Machiavelli  and  acted 
immediately  like  the  heroes  of  Machiavelli  . . . fiddles  and 
fights  as  well  as  any  man  in  Christendom.’  Fiddles  and  fights  ! 
Well,  since  it  was  impossible  to  adore  Frederick  as  Concordia, 
one  might  as  well  admire  him  as  Mars.  Making  the  best  of  it 
was  part  of  Voltaire’s  creed.  He  did  what  he  could  to  live  up  to 
it  now.  He  congratulated  Frederick  on  his  victories.  The  pair 
continued  to  write  each  other  long  letters,  much  interspersed 
with  facile  rhymes.  They  were  still  friends,  and  fast  friends. 
But  it  was  no  longer  the  boy-hero,  the  Messiah  of  the  North, 
the  youthful  benefactor  of  human  kind  whom  Voltaire  adored  : 
it  was  a far  cleverer  and  a far  less  lovable  person — the  real 
Frederick  the  Great. 

Voltaire’s  interminable  journey  did  near  its  end  at  last.  By 
January  3,  1741,  he  was  in  Brussels.  Did  he  feel  a little  bit 


,Et.  46-47]  TWO  PLAYS  AND  A FAILURE 


129 


like  the  truant  schoolboy  returning  in  the  evening  expecting  a 
whipping,  and  all  his  excuses  for  so  long  an  absence  disbelieved  ? 
Of  course  Madame  du  Chatelet  disbelieved  them ! A month 
getting  back  from  Berlin  to  Brussels  ! That  was  a very  likely 
story  indeed,  and  quite  on  a par  with  friend  Frederick’s  artful 
ague  at  Moyland ! Had  quite  planned  to  be  back  in  Brussels 
before  I arrived  from  Paris  ! Had  you  indeed  ? And  you  expect 
me  to  believe  that  too  ? 

The  unhappy  Marquise  had  been  eating  her  heart  out  in 
suspicion  and  impatience,  waiting  for  him.  ‘ I have  been  cruelly 
repaid  for  all  I have  done  for  him,’  she  wrote  to  d’Argental  out  of 
this  angry  solitude ; and  again,  ‘ I know  the  King  of  Prussia  hates 
me,  but  I defy  him  to  hate  me  as  much  as  I have  hated  him  these 
two  months.’  She  overwhelmed  Voltaire  with  reproaches  directly 
she  saw  him.  Her  tongue  was  dreadfully  voluble  and  clever. 
The  Marquis  was  away,  as  usual.  There  was  nothing  to  distract 
her  attention,  and  Voltaire’s  excuses  did  sound  very  lame  indeed. 
He  had  a very  bad  quarter  of  an  hour ; but,  after  all,  it  was  only 
a quarter  of  an  hour.  They  were  reconciled — and  tenderly.  If 
Madame  was  scolding  and  exacting,  devoted  to  the  metaphysics 
of  Christianus  Wolffius,  extraordinarily  clad  and  with  a painful 
taste  in  headgear,  she  loved  her  lover  and  had  done  much  for 
him.  And  Frederick  the  Great  had  invaded  Silesia.  If  that 
invasion  was  a triumph  for  him,  it  was  also  a triumph  for  one  of 
the  bitterest  foes  he  had,  Madame  du  Chatelet. 

At  Brussels,  in  that  January  of  the  year  1741,  there  was  then, 
for  a time,  some  sort  of  renewal  of  the  brief  honeymoon  days  of 
Cirey,  before  the  Prussian  heir-apparent’s  earliest  letter,  when  the 
chains  that  bound  the  first  man  in  Europe  to  his  Marquise  were 
forged  of  warm  admiration  and  not  barren  duty. 

Voltaire  was  soon  writing  that  it  was  not  Frederick’s  perfidy 
that  had  hastened  his  return — that  if  he  had  been  offered  Silesia 
itself  he  would  have  come  back  to  his  mistress  just  the  same. 
She  had  never  seemed  so  far  above  kings  as  she  did  now.  Her 
unjust  reproaches  even  were  sweeter  than  the  flatteries  of  all 
courts.  He  had  left  her  once  for  a monarch,  but  he  would  not 
leave  her  again  for  a prophet.  And  she — a true  woman  after 
all — wrote  that  Frederick  could  take  as  many  provinces  as  he 
pleased,  provided  he  did  not  rob  her  of  the  happiness  of  her  life. 

K 


130 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1741-42 


Voltaire  was  busy  in  these  early  months  of  1741  with  his  play 
‘ Mahomet,’  for  which  he  had  a quite  fatherly  love  and  admira- 
tion. The  English  Lord  Chesterfield,  with  whom  he  had  dined 
in  London,  was  a visitor  at  Madame  du  Chatelet’s  Brussels  esta- 
blishment, and  to  him  Voltaire  read  selections  from  the  new 
drama.  It  would  have  been  immediately  produced  in  Paris  ; but 
the  best  actors  were  unable  to  take  part  in  it,  and  it  was  judged 
better  to  postpone  its  appearance  there. 

In  this  April  Voltaire  and  Madame  du  Chatelet  went  to 
Lille,  to  stay  with  Madame  Denis  and  her  husband.  At  Lille, 

4 Mahomet  ’ was  performed  by  a company  of  French  players,  who 
had  been  half  engaged  by  Voltaire  to  go  to  Prussia  in  the  employ 
of  Frederick,  and  then  thrown  over  by  that  busy  monarch.  The 
audience,  each  of  the  three  nights  the  play  was  performed,  was 
numerous  and  passionately  enthusiastic.  The  clergy  of  Lille 
were  powerfully  represented  and  entirely  approving.  M.  Denis 
and  his  plump  three  years  bride  of  course  came  to  clap  the  latest 
effort  of  Uncle  Voltaire.  Uncle  Voltaire  had  a keen  eye  on  the 
face,  and  a lean  forefinger  on  the  pulse  of  that  audience  to  see 
how  certain  daring  passages  affected  it.  What  Lille  applauded, 
Paris  might  pass.  On  the  first  night,  at  the  end  of  the  second 
act,  a despatch  from  the  King  of  Prussia  was  handed  to  M.  de 
Voltaire  in  his  box.  He  read  it  aloud.  ‘ It  is  said  the  Austrians 
are  retreating,  and  I believe  it.’  It  was  the  declaration  of  the 
victory  of  Mollwitz.  Lille  had  its  own  reasons  for  being  pas- 
sionately Prussian,  and  received  the  news  with  shouts  of  delight. 
If  anything  had  been  needed  to  complete  the  success  of  * Mahomet,’ 
that  despatch  would  have  done  it.  The  bearer  of  good  news  is 
always  a popular  person.  But  nothing  was  needed.  The  clergy 
of  Lille  begged,  and  were  granted,  an  extra  performance  of  the 
play  for  their  especial  benefit  at  the  house  of  one  of  the  chief 
magistrates.  Orthodoxy  seemed  to  be  taking  this  Voltaire  under 
her  strong  wing  at  last,  and  Voltaire  accepted  the  situation  with 
a very  cynic  grimace  and  a great  deal  of  satisfaction.  He  and 
Madame  du  Chatelet  left  Lille  with  the  most  sanguine  hopes  of 
seeing  £ Mahomet  ’ shortly  and  successfully  produced  in  Paris. 
Until  November  1741  they  were  mostly  in  Brussels,  watching  the 
progress  of  the  du  Chatelet  lawsuit.  Madame  had  a little  quarrel 
on  hand  with  her  tutor  Koenig,  in  which  Maupertuis  joined. 


131 


47-48]  TWO  PLAYS  AND  A FAILURE 

In  November  they  went  to  Paris  and  stayed,  not  in  that 
splendid  Palais  Lambert  .which  the  Marquis  du  Chatelet  had 
bought,  but  which  was  not  yet  completely  furnished,  but  in 
Voltaire’s  old  quarters — the  house  which  had  belonged  to  Madame 
de  Fontaine  Martel.  In  December  they  returned  to  Cirey  for  a 
month ; and  in  the  January  of  the  new  year  1742  were  again  in 
Brussels.  The  lawsuit  was  positively  progressing,  and  so  favour- 
ably that  they  felt  justified  in  spending  the  rest  of  the  winter  in 
Paris.  Immediately  on  their  arrival  in  the  capital  they  were 
plunged  into  that 4 disordered  life  * which  the  Marquise  loved  and 
Voltaire  loathed.  4 Supping  when  I ought  to  be  in  bed,  going  to 
bed  and  not  sleeping,  getting  up  to  race  about,  not  doing  any 
work,  deprived  of  real  pleasures  and  surrounded  by  imaginary 
ones  * — as  a description  of  fashionable  life  the  words  hold  good 
to  this  day.  4 Farewell  the  court,’  he  wrote  again  ; 4 1 have  not 
a courtier’s  health.’  He  spoke  of  himself  as  being  always  at 
the  tail  of  that  lawsuit — which  the  indefatigable  and  persistent 
Marquise  must  pursue  to  the  bitter  end. 

They  lingered  in  Paris  through  May,  June,  July — in  their 
.fine  Palais  Lambert  now — and  all  the  time  no  4 Mahomet.’ 
Voltaire  should  have  been  used  to  disappointments  and  delays,  if 
any  man  should.  He  brought  out  everything  he  ever  wrote  at 
the  point  of  the  sword.  There  were  always  anxiously  waiting  to 
take  offence  the  acutely  susceptible  feelings  of  a Church,  a king, 
a court,  a nobility,  and  a press  censor.  This  time,  first  of  all,  it 
was  the  Turkish  envoy  who  was  being  feted  in  Paris,  4 and  it 
would  not  be  proper  to  defame  the  Prophet  while  entertaining  his 
ambassador,’  said  the  polite  Voltaire.  The  second  cause  of 
delay  was  much  more  serious.  Exactly  at  a moment  when  the 
policy  of  Frederick  the  Great  appeared  peculiarly  anti-French  and 
that  monarch  was  enjoying  the  brief  but  vivid  hatred  of  Paris, 
there  crept  out  one  of  Voltaire’s  rhyming  letters  to  the  Prussian 
King,  in  which  the  courtly  writer  lavishly  praised  and  flattered 
his  correspondent.  M.  de  Voltaire  had  to  be  alert  and  active 
in  a moment.  He  pursued  his  old  line  of  policy.  First  of 
all,  I did  not  write  the  letter.  Secondly,  if  I did,  it  has  been 
miscopied.  Thirdly,  it  I did  write  it  and  it  has  not  been  mis- 
copied,  the  reigning  favourite  of  Louis  XV.,  Madame  de  Mailly, 
must  help  me  out  of  my  dilemma.  Voltaire  wrote  and  asked  her 


132 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1742 


assistance.  She  could  not  do  much.  But  Cardinal  Fleury  still 
looked  upon  Voltaire  as  a person  to  be  conciliated  as  an  influence 
on  Prussia.  He  read  the  play,  and  approved.  The  censor  did 
likewise.  The  murmur  of  the  streets  and  the  cafes  was  still 
against  the  too  Prussian  Voltaire.  But  for  once  the  authorities 
actually  seemed  to  be  with  him. 

On  August  19,  1742,  4 Fanaticism,  or  Mahomet  the  Prophet  * 
was  performed  to  a house  crammed  with  the  rank,  wit,  and 
fashion  of  Paris,  who  applauded  it  to  the  echo.  D’Alembert 
appeared  for  literature.  The  Bar  and  the  Church  were  generously 
represented.  The  author  himself  was  in  the  pit.  This  might  be 
another  4 Zaire,’  only  a 4 Zaire  ’ written  in  the  plenitude  of  a 
man’s  mental  powers — stern,  not  tender — grand,  not  pathetic — 
the  expression  of  matured  and  passionate  convictions,  instead  of 
vivid,  impulsive  feelings.  Voltaire  was  eight-and-thirty  when 
he  produced  4 Zaire,’  and  eight-and-forty  when  he  produced 
4 Mahomet.’  How  fully  he  had  lived  in  those  ten  years  ! Then 
he  felt : now  he  knew.  He  had  often  dared  greatly  in  his  plays  : 
in  4 Mahomet  ’ he  dared  all. 

Lord  Chesterfield  had  regarded  the  tragedy  as  a covert  attack 
on  Christianity.  It  must  have  been  the  sceptical  reputation  of 
M.  de  Voltaire  which  made  Lord  Chesterfield  so  think.  No  im- 
partial person  reading  it  now  could  find  an  anti-Christian  word 
in  it.  It  is  a covert  attack  on  nothing.  It  is  an  open  attack  on 
the  fanaticism,  bigotry,  intolerance,  which  degrade  any  religion. 
It  is  a battle  against  the  4 shameful  superstition  which  debases 
humanity.’  Worth,  not  birth,  is  its  motto.  4 All  men  are  equal : 
worth,  not  birth,  makes  the  difference  between  them,’  says  Omar, 
one  of  the  characters.  In  this  play  is  found  that  famous  and 
scornful  line  4 Impostor  at  Mecca  and  prophet  at  Medina.’  There 
is  scarcely  a sentence  in  it  which  is  not  a quivering  and  passionate 
protest  against  the  crafty  rule  of  any  priesthood  which  would  keep 
from  the  laity  light,  knowledge,  and  progress.  4 1 wished  to  show 
in  it,’  said  Voltaire  to  M.  Cesar  de  Missy,  4 to  what  horrible  excess 
fanaticism  can  bring  feeble  souls,  led  by  a knave.’ 

If  there  were  dissentient  voices — and  there  were — the  applause 
of  that  brilliant  first  night  drowned  them.  The  play  was  repeated 
a second  time  and  a third.  Voltaire  may  have  begun  to  feel  safe : 
to  congratulate  himself  that  at  last  free  thought  uttered  freely 


Mt.  48] 


TWO  PLAYS  AND  A FAILURE 


133 


was  permissible  even  in  France.  He  was  always  hopeful.  But 
his  enemies  were  too  mighty  for  him.  Working  against  him 
always,  untiring,  subtle,  malicious,  was  the  whole  envious  Grub 
Street  of  Paris  led  by  beaten  Desfontaines  and  jealous  Piron. 
The  man  in  the  street  was  now  bitterly  against  him  too.  The 
Solicitor-General,  who,  on  his  own  confession,  had  not  read  a 
word  of  the  play,  much  less  seen  it  acted,  was  soon  writing  to  the 
Lieutenant  of  Police  that  he  ‘ believed  it  necessary  to  forbid  its 
performances.’  On  the  valuable  evidence  of  hearsay,  he  found 
4 Mahomet  ’ 1 infamous,  wicked,  irreligious,  blasphemous,’  and 
‘ everybody  says  that  to  have  written  it  the  author  must  be  a 
scoundrel  only  fit  for  burning.’  It  was  still  in  the  power  of  this  re- 
markable officer  of  most  remarkable  justice  to  prosecute  Voltaire  for 
the  ‘ Philosophic  Letters,’  which  he  threatened  to  do,  if  ‘ Mahomet  ’ 
were  not  removed.  Feeling  ran  so  high  that  friend  Fleury  himself 
was  compelled  to  advise  the  withdrawal  of  the  play.  It  was  per- 
formed once  more — that  is,  in  all  four  times — and  then  withdrawn. 

A man  of  much  more  placid  disposition  might  have  been 
roused  now.  But  this  time  Voltaire  was  too  disgusted,  too  sick 
at  heart  with  men  and  life,  to  have  even  the  strength  to  be  angry. 
He  and  Madame  du  Chatelet  left  for  Brussels  on  August  22.  He 
was  ill  in  bed  by  August  29 — ten  days  after  that  first  brilliant 
performance — trying  to  sit  up  and  make  a fair  copy  of  the  real 
‘ Mahomet  ’ to  send  to  Frederick  the  Great. 

The  spurious  editions,  shamefully  incorrect,  which  were 
appearing  all  over  Paris,  must  have  been  the  overflow  of  the 
invalid’s  cup  of  bitterness. 

‘It  is  only  what  happened  to  “ Tartuffe,”  ’ he  wrote  from  that 
sick  bed  to  Frederick.  ‘ The  hypocrites  persecuted  Moliere,  and 
the  fanatics  are  risen  up  against  me.  I have  yielded  to  the  torrent 
without  uttering  a word.  ...  If  I had  but  the  King  of  Prussia 
for  a master  and  the  English  for  fellow-citizens ! The  French 
are  nothing  but  great  children ; only  the  few  thinkers  we  have 
among  us  are  so  splendid  as  to  make  up  for  all  the  rest.’  And 
a day  or  two  later  to  another  friend : ‘ This  tragedy  is  suitable 
rather  for  English  heads  than  French  hearts.  It  was  found 
too  daring  in  Paris  because  it  was  powerful,  and  dangerous 
because  it  was  truthful.  ...  It  is  only  in  London  that  poets  are 
allowed  to  be  philosophers.’ 


134 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1742-43 


The  words  sound  as  if  the  writer  were  weary,  las,  at  the  end 
of  his  tether.  On  September  2,  1742,  he  went  for  a very  few 
days’  rest  and  refreshment  to  Aix-la-Chapelle  to  see  Frederick 
the  Great,  who  had  just  signed  a treaty  of  peace.  Madame  du 
Chatelet  did  not  object  to  that  brief  holiday,  and  entertained  no 
idea  of  making  a third  person  thereat  herself.  She  was  more 
confident  of  her  Voltaire  now — hopeful  that  he  was  hers,  body 
and  soul,  for  ever.  When  he  was  at  Aix,  Frederick  offered  him 
a house  in  Berlin  and  a charming  estate — peace,  freedom,  and 
honour  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  And  Voltaire  said  he  preferred  a 
second  storey  in  the  house  of  his  Marquise — slavery  and  persecu- 
tion in  Paris,  to  liberty  and  a king’s  friendship  in  Berlin.  ‘ 1 
courageously  resisted  all  his  propositions  * was  his  own  phrase. 
For  this  man  when  he  was  virtuous  always  knew  it,  and  keenly 
felt  how  much  pleasanter  it  would  have  been  to  be  wicked  instead. 
Fleury  approved  of  the  little  visit,  and  though  it  tvas  a holiday 
and  Frederick  ivas  his  friend,  Voltaire  still  did  his  best  to  subtly 
find  out  the  royal  disposition  towards  France. 

On  September  7 he  returned  to  Brussels,  not  having  been 
absent  a week.  Madame  du  Chatelet  longed  to  get  back  to  the 
gaieties  of  Paris,  though  Voltaire,  who  was  ill  enough  to  be  able 
to  write  nothing  but  verses,  said  Madame,  was  well  content  in 
Brussels. 

He  went  back  to  the  capital,  however,  in  this  November  of 
1742,  and  was  not  a little  vif  and  active  in  getting  imprisoned 
certain  publishers  who  had  produced  ‘ the  most  infamous  satire  ’ 
on  himself  and  Madame  du  Chatelet. 

He  was  soon  also  busy  on  a scheme  which  he  had  tried  suc- 
cessfully ten  years  before.  When  4 Eriphyle  ’ failed  he  brought 
out  ‘ Zaire.’  When  the  authorities  damned  ‘Mahomet’  he  pro- 
duced £ Merope.’  Ten  years — ten  years  of  battles  and  disappoint- 
ments, of  wretched  health  and  domestic  vicissitudes — had  not 
robbed  him  of  one  iota  of  his  pluck,  energy,  and  enterprise.  He 
flung  off  that  lassitude  and  despair  of  life  which  came  upon  him 
in  those  few  dismal  days  in  Brussels  : searched  among  his  manu- 
scripts : discovered  ‘ M6rope,’  and  went  out  to  meet  the  enemy 
with  that  weapon  in  his  hand.  It  had  been  written  in  the  early 
days  at  Cirey,  between  1736  and  1738.  It  was  the  play  over 
which  Madame  de  Graffigny  had  ‘ wept  to  sobs.’  Voltaire  had 


Mt.  48-49]  TWO  PLAYS  AND  A FAILURE 


135 


wept  over  it  himself.  He  felt  what  he  wrote  when  he  wrote  it,  so 
acutely  that  there  was  no  wonder  his  readers  were  moved  too. 
His  own  wit  and  pathos  always  retained  their  power  to  touch  him 
to  tears  or  laughter  whenever  he  read  them,  which  is  more 
unusual. 

1 Merope  7 is  a classic  tragedy — 4 a tragedy  without  love  in  it 
and  only  the  more  tender  for  that,7  wrote  Voltaire  to  Cideville. 
It  turns  on  maternal  affection.  The  idea  is  uncommon  and 
daring  enough.  Would  the  venture  be  successful  ? Madame  de 
Graffigny  had  wept  indeed  ; but  then  Graffignys  weep  and  laugh 
easily,  especially  when  the  author  is  also  the  host.  Mademoiselle 
Quinault  and  d’Argental  had  told  him  that  ‘ Merope  7 was  un- 
actable to  a French  parterre. 

The  Marquise  had  mocked  at  it ; but  then  the  Marquise  had 
happened  to  be  in  a very  bad  temper  with  the  playwright.  Who 
could  tell  ? If  taking  pains  could  make  it  succeed,  a success  it 
would  be.  The  author,  himself  no  mean  actor,  attended  the 
rehearsal  and  coached  the  players.  When  Mademoiselle  Dumesnil, 
who  was  cast  for  4 Merope,7  failed  to  rise  to  the  height  of  tragedy 
demanded  in  the  fourth  act  where  she  has  to  throw  herself 
between  her  son  and  the  guards  leading  him  to  execution,  crying 
4 Barbare ! il  est  mon  fils  ! 7 — she  complained  she  would  have 
to  have  the  devil  in  her  to  simulate  such  a passion  as  Voltaire 
required.  4 That  is  just  it,  Mademoiselle,7  cried  he.  4 You  must 
have  the  devil  in  you  to  succeed  in  any  of  the  arts  ! 7 There  was 
never  a truer  word.  He  did  manage  to  put  a good  deal  of  the 
devil  into  Mademoiselle.  She  became  a famous  actress.  His 
own  fervour  was  infectious.  The  players,  who  had  disliked  the 
play  at  first,  caught  his  own  enthusiasm  for  it  at  last.  On 
February  20,  1748,  it  was  first  represented  to  a house  crowded 
with  persons  who  had  admired  4 Mahomet 7 and  sympathised  with 
the  treatment  of  4 Mahomet’s  7 author.  It  was  the  best  first  night 
on  record.  Mademoiselle  Dumesnil  kept  the  house  in  tears 
throughout  three  acts,  it  is  said.  For  the  first  time  in  any  theatre 
the  enthusiastic  audience  demanded  the  appearance  of  the  author. 
He  was  in  a box  with  the  Duchesse  de  BoufHers  and  the  Duchesse 
de  Luxembourg  and  entirely  declined  to  present  himself  on  the 
stage.  His  Duchesses  tried  to  persuade  him,  with  no  better  success 
than  the  audience.  He  kissed  the  Duchesse  de  Luxembourg’s 


136 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1743 


hand  and  left  the  box,  ‘ with  a resigned  air,’  and  tried  to  hide 
himself  in  another  part  of  the  house.  But  he  was  discovered, 
and  drawn  into  the  box  of  the  Marechale  de  Villars  for  whom  he  had 
once  felt  something  more  than  the  feelings  of  a friend.  How  long 
ago  that  was — Villars  and  its  white  nights — a young  man  of  five- 
and-twenty,  and  Madame,  gracious,  svelte , and  woman  of  the 
world  to  the  tips  of  her  fingers  ! She  had  become  devote  since. 
‘ She  was  made  to  lead  us  all  to  Heaven  or  Hell,  whichever  she 
chooses,’  wrote  Voltaire  airily.  As  for  himself,  he  had  his 
Marquise  du  Chatelet.  The  moment  was  not  one  for  reminiscences 
in  any  case.  The  parterre  was  not  to  be  silenced.  The  story 
runs  that  it  vociferously  insisted  that  Madame  de  Villars,  the 
young  daughter-in-law  of  his  old  love,  should  kiss  M.  de  Voltaire. 
The  Marechale  ordered  her  to  do  so,  and  Voltaire  wrote  after  that 
he  was  like  Alain  Chartier  and  the  Princess  Margaret  of  Scotland — 
‘ only  he  was  asleep  and  I was  awake/ 

He  enjoyed  that  evening  as  only  a Frenchman  can  enjoy. 
He  was  all  his  life  intensely  susceptible  to  the  emotions  of  the 
moment ; vain  with  the  light-hearted  vanity  of  a very  young  man  ; 
loving  show  and  glitter,  applause  and  flattery — a true  child  of 
France,  though  one  of  the  greatest  of  her  great  family.  Was  it 
not  a triumph  over  his  enemies  too  ? What  might  not  follow 
from  it?  Voltaire  said  hereafter  that  the  distinction  between 
himself  and  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  was  that  Jean  Jacques  wrote 
in  order  to  write,  and  he  wrote  in  order  to  act.  Of  what  use  was 
the  dazzling  success  of  ‘ Merope  ’ if  it  could  not  buy  him  a place 
he  had  long  coveted  and  gratify  one  of  the  darling  desires  of  his 
soul  ? 

On  January  29  of  this  same  year  1743  had  died  Voltaire’s 
friend,  Cardinal  Fleury.  He  left  vacant  one  of  the  forty  coveted 
chairs  in  the  French  Academy.  Who  should  aspire  to  it  if  not 
the  man  who  had  written  the  4 Henriade  ’ and  the  ‘ English 
Letters,’  ‘ Zaire,’  ‘ Alzire,’  ‘ Mahomet,’  and  ‘ Merope  ’ ? It  would 
be  no  empty  honour,  but  a safeguard  against  his  enemies : the 
hall-mark  of  the  King’s  favour. 

The  King  was  for  his  election ; so  was  the  King’s  mistress, 
Madame  de  Chateauroux ; but  against  it,  and  bitterly  against  it, 
were  Maurepas,  Secretary  of  State,  and  Boyer,  Bishop  of 
Mirepoix,  and  tutor  of  the  Dauphin.  Voltaire  always  called 


Mt,  49] 


TWO  PLAYS  AND  A FAILURE 


137 


Boyer  the  £ ane  de  Mirepoix  ’ from  the  fact  that  he  signed  himself 
‘anc:  de  Mirepoix/  meaning  that  he  was  formerly  bishop  of  that 
place — and  it  must  be  conceded  that,  if  conscientious,  he  was  one 
of  the  most  narrow-minded  old  prelates  who  ever  fattened  at  a 
court.  He  has  been  well  summed  up  as  a man  who  ‘ reaped  all 
the  honours  and  sowed  none.7  His  argument  was  that  it  would 
offend  Heaven  for  a profane  person  like  M.  de  Voltaire  to  succeed 
a cardinal  in  any  office.  To  be  sure,  the  chairs  in  the  Academy 
were  designed  to  reward  literary,  not  ecclesiastical,  merit.  But 
what  was  that  to  a Boyer  ? 

Voltaire  wrote  long  letters  which  are  masterpieces  of  subtlety 
and  special  pleading  to  prove  what  a good  Christian  and  Church- 
man he  was,  and  how  suited  in  character,  as  well  as  ability,  to  be 
the  successor  of  a prelate.  He  did  not  stop  at  a lie.  In  a letter 
to  Boyer  written  at  the  end  of  February  he  declared  himself  a 
sincere  Catholic,  and  added  that  he  had  never  written  a page 
which  did  not  breathe  humanity  (which  was  true  enough)  and 
many  sanctified  by  religion  (which  was  very  untrue  indeed).  He 
conclusively  proved  (cannot  one  fancy  the  twinkle  in  his  eager 
eyes  as  he  penned  the  words  ?)  that  ‘ the  “ Henriade  77  from  one  end 
to  the  other  is  nothing  but  an  eloge  of  a virtue  which  submits  to 
Providence,7  and  that  most  of  the  ‘English  Letters,7  current  in 
Paris,  were  not  written  by  him  at  all.  The  mixture  of  the  false 
and  the  true  is  so  clever  that  it  might  have  deceived  anybody. 
Voltaire  may  have  argued  with  himself  that  since  he  knew  it 
would  deceive  nobody,  the  lying  was  very  venial  indeed.  What 
did  it  matter  what  he  said  now  ? It  was  the  master  motives 
which  had  ruled  his  life,  the  passion  for  freedom  of  thought  and 
action,  the  sceptical  temper,  the  burning  longing  for  light  and 
knowledge  which  panted  in  every  page  of  every  play,  in  every  line 
almost  of  his  graver  works,  which  counted  against  him.  He  was 
excluded  from  the  Academy.  The  Ass  of  Mirepoix  won  M.  de 
Voltaire’s  seat  for  a bishop — of  very  slender  literary  capacity  in- 
deed. Voltaire  wrote  lightly  that  it  was  according  to  the  canons 
of  the  Church  that  a prelate  should  succeed  a prelate,  and  that 
‘ a profane  person  like  myself  must  renounce  the  Academy  for 
ever.7 

But  he  was  bitterly  disappointed  not  the  less.  Frederick  the 
Great,  in  a kingly  pun,  said  that  he  believed  that  France  was  now 


138 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIJRE 


[1743 


the  only  country  in  Europe  where  ‘ ancs  ’ and  fools  could  make 
their  fortunes.  In  1743  England  elected  Voltaire  a member  of 
her  Royal  Society.  During  the  year  four  other  chairs  fell  vacant 
at  the  French  Academy.  But  the  greatest  literary  genius  of  the 
age,  perhaps  of  any  age,  was  not  even  mooted  as  a candidate.  It 
was  Montesquieu,  the  famous  author  of  ‘L’Esprit  des  Lois,’  who 
said  scornfully  of  the  occasion  and  of  Voltaire : 

‘ Voltaire  n’est  pas  beau,  il  n’est  que  joli.  It  would  be 
shameful  for  the  Academy  to  admit  him,  and  it  will  one  day  be 
shameful  for  it  not  to  have  admitted  him.’ 

In  what  a far  different  and  far  larger  spirit  it  was  that 
Voltaire  criticised  his  critic — ‘ Humanity  had  lost  its  title-deeds. 
Montesquieu  found  them  and  gave  them  back.’ 


Mi.  49] 


i39 


CHAPTER  XIV 

VOLTAIRE  AS  DIPLOMATIST  AND  COURTIER 

Voltaire  had  a little  distraction  from  his  disappointment  about 
the  Academy  in  the  April  of  this  1743  in  the  marriage  of  Pauline 
du  Chatelet,  the  vivacious  little  amateur  actress  of  Cirey. 
Pauline  was  fresh  from  a convent  and  aged  exactly  sixteen.  The 
Italian  Due  de  Montenero-Caraff,  the  bridegroom,  was  distinctly 
elderly,  and,  as  sketched  in  a few  lively  touches  by  Voltaire,  very 
unprepossessing.  The  Marquise  maintained  she  had  not  arranged 
the  alliance.  But  manages  de  convenance  were  the  established 
custom  of  the  day.  Who  knows  ? Voltaire  had  been  for  freedom 
of  choice  in  the  case  of  niece  Denis,  it  is  certain.  Pauline  was 
not  his  to  dispose  of.  He  would  appear  to  have  shrugged  his 
shoulders  and  given  her  his  blessing.  With  it,  she  disappears  out 
of  the  history  of  his  life. 

In  June  he  had  another  chagrin.  The  performance  of  his 
play,  ‘ The  Death  of  Caesar,’  already  acted  in  August  1735  by  the 
pupils  of  the  Harcourt  College,  was  stopped  on  the  very  evening 
before  it  was  to  have  been  produced  in  public.  Not  many  days 
after,  M.  de  Voltaire  left  Paris  on  his  fourth  visit  to  Frederick 
the  Great.  Frederick  wanted  him  socially  as  the  wittiest  man  in 
the  world,  the  most  daring  genius  of  the  age.  If  the  French 
Academy  would  have  none  of  him,  the  Prussian  Court  knew 
better.  Besides — besides — could  not  this  subtle  Solomon  of  the 
North  rely  on  himself  to  find  out  from  his  guest  something  of 
the  temper  and  the  disposition  of  France  toward  Prussia  ? The 
guest  was  not  less  astute.  The  role  of  amateur  diplomatist 
pleased  his  fancy  and  his  vanity.  What  if  he  had  not  been 
successful  in  it  before  ? A Voltaire  could  always  try  again.  He 
left  Paris  then  in  June,  pretending  that  his  journey  was  the 
outcome  of  his  quarrel  with  Boyer,  but  really  as  the  emissary  of 


140 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1743 


Richelieu  on  a secret  mission  to  Frederick  to  warn  him  of  the 
danger  of  allowing  King  George  of  Hanover  and  England  to 
help  Maria  Theresa  to  her  rights,  and  meaning  to  win  over  the 
cleverest  monarch  in  Europe  to  an  alliance  with  France.  It  was 
a beautiful  scheme.  It  had  first ‘ come  into  the  heads  ’ of  friend 
Richelieu  and  Madame  de  Chateauroux ; then  the  King  had 
adopted  it,  and  Amelot,  the  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs.  It  was 
ambitious  enough  to  particularly  appeal  to  Voltaire’s  audacity. 
The  King  of  France  was  to  pay  all  expenses : which  was  not 
unjust.  The  Bourbons  seldom  spent  their  money  so  wisely. 
Madame  du  Chatelet  was  the  only  person  intrusted  with  the  secret 
of  the  journey’s  real  object.  She  felt  that  it  was  due  to  herself 
to  have  a fit  of  hysterics  since  her  Voltaire  was  leaving  her  for 
this  Frederick,  and  she  had  it.  But  she  kept  the  secret.  If  she 
was  a little  proud  in  her  heart  of  the  honour  such  a mission 
implied,  yet  her  grief  at  the  departure  of  her  ‘ ami  ’ was  so  unre- 
strained as  to  make  her  and  it  the  laughing-stocks  of  Paris. 
Frederick  ‘ is  a very  dangerous  rival  for  me,’  she  wrote  on 
June  28,  1748.  4 If  I had  been  in  Voltaire’s  place  I should  not 

have  gone ! ’ ‘I  am  staying  here  in  the  hopes  of  getting 
“ Caesar  ” played  and  so  hastening  his  return.’ 

Voltaire  set  off  in  very  excellent  spirits.  It  would  so  annoy 
Boyer  to  see  his  enemy  protected  by  the  most  powerful  monarch 
in  Europe — and  by  a monarch  who  was  not  at  all  above  making 
mots  on  an  ‘anc:  de  Mirepoix’!  4 1 had  at  once  the  pleasure 
of  revenging  myself  on  the  Bishop  ...  of  taking  a very  pleasant 
little  trip,  and  being  in  the  way  of  rendering  services  to  the  King 
and  the  state.’  In  July  he  was  writing  to  his  friends,  and  to 
Amelot,  from  ‘ a palace  of  the  King  of  Prussia  at  The  Hague  ’ — 
a little  humanly  proud  of  being  able  to  date  his  letters  from  such 
a place,  keen  for  the  fray,  sick  in  body  as  usual,  and  vividly 
alert  in  mind. 

On  August  81  he  arrived  at  Berlin.  The  first  news  he  had  to 
communicate  to  Amelot  was  the  victory  of  George  II.  of  England 
at  Dettingen.  What  honours  could  be  too  great  for  a man  who, 
at  such  a juncture,  made  Prussia  the  friend  of  France  ? Madame 
du  Chatelet,  keeping  her  counsel  at  home,  must  have  had  high 
hopes  for  her  Voltaire.  And  her  Voltaire,  at  Berlin,  cherished 
them  for  himself. 


/Et.  49] 


DIPLOMATIST  AND  COUETIER 


141 


To  all  appearances  indeed  the  visit  was  but  a fete,  and  a 
gorgeous  fete . Berlin  was  gay  with  balls,  operas,  and  parties. 
Sometimes  there  were  ballets,  and  nightly  almost  those  royal 
suppers  where,  said  the  guest,  ‘ God  was  respected,  but  those  who 
had  deceived  men  in  His  name  were  not  spared.’  Voltaire  had 
a room  adjoining  Frederick’s,  and  the  King  came  in  and  out  of 
the  visitor’s  apartment  familiarly.  The  old  potent  charm  which 
these  two  men  had  for  each  other  was  at  work  again.  But  not 
the  less,  through  the  glamour,  the  wit,  the  wine  and  the  laughter, 
each  pursued  his  secret  object,  adroit,  thorough,  and  unsleeping. 

Voltaire  played  the  role  of  diplomatist  as  he  played  all  roles 
— brilliantly.  He  was  delightfully  gay  and  easy.  He  seemed  so 
volatile  and  so  gullible.  He  threw  himself  into  the  pleasures  of 
the  hour  with  all  his  French  soul.  An  ulterior  motive  ? The 
man  was  bon  enfant , bon  conteur,  bon  everything.  He  had  come 
to  enjoy  himself  and  was  doing  it  to  the  full. 

‘ Through  all,’  he  wrote,  ‘ my  secret  mission  went  forward.’ 
He  despatched  immense  diplomatic  documents  to  his  country  via 
Madame  du  Chatelet.  He  drew  up  a famous  series  of  questions, 
to  which  friend  Frederick  was  to  append  such  answers  as  would 
bare  the  secrets  of  his  Prussian  soul  to  France.  The  diplomatist 
had  immense  conversations  with  the  monarch,  which  he  reported. 
Frederick  wrote  Voltaire  a most  beautiful  open  letter  to  show  in 
Paris,  wherein  he  complimented  France  on  her  Louis  XV.,  and 
Louis  XV.  on  his  Voltaire.  He  renewed  his  pressing  invitations 
to  Voltaire  to  come  and  live  at  Berlin— nay,  did  more.  He 
worked  behind  his  back  so  as  to  further  embroil  him  with  Boyer, 
and  make  France  too  hot  to  hold  him.  4 That  would  be  the  wTay 
to  have  him  in  Berlin.’ 

Frederick  was  his  guest’s  friend,  and  his  devoted  friend.  But 
he  thought  it  no  breach  of  friendship  to  trick  him  where  he  could, 
and  kept  closed  the  book  of  his  intentions  and  his  soul. 

The  fact  was  that  where  Voltaire  was  but  a brilliant  amateur, 
Frederick  was  the  sound  professional;  that  what  this  daring 
Arouet  took  upon  himself  for  the  nonce,  was  the  business  of  the 
King’s  life.  Voltaire  was  not  above  trickery : but  Frederick 
tricked  better.  His  answers  to  that  famous  series  of  questions 
are  evasive,  or  buffoonery.  Voltaire  counted  that  he  had  not  done 
badly  in  his  mission.  But  Frederick  had  done  better. 


142 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIKE 


[1743-44 


The  visit  finished  with  a fortnight  at  Bayreuth  in  September 
1743,  where  Voltaire  and  the  King  were  the  guests  of  the  King’s 
sisters,  where  were  gaiety,  laughter,  and  wit — 4 all  the  pleasures 
of  a court  without  its  formality.’  Voltaire  distinguished  himself 
by  writing  three  charming  madrigals  to  the  three  royal  ladies. 
They  do  not  admit  of  translation.  It  is  only  in  their  original 
tongue  that  their  grace,  ease,  and  delicacy  can  be  appreciated. 
But  for  that  kind  of  versifying  they  are  the  model  for  all  time. 
If  Voltaire  had  not  far  more  splendid  titles  to  fame,  he  would 
have  gone  down  the  ages  as  the  daintiest  and  wittiest  writer  who 
ever  made  sonnets  on  his  mistress’s  eyebrow,  trifled  with  graceful 
jests,  and  flattered  with  daintiest  comparisons. 

In  the  early  days  of  October  he  was  back  in  Berlin  for  a few 
days  en  passant . On  October  12  he  and  his  King  parted  there, 
not  without  much  show  of  sorrow,  and  some  of  the  reality  of  it. 

Voltaire  had  found  out  4 that  little  treason  ’ whose  aim  was  to 
keep  him  in  Prussia ; but  at  these  parting  moments  4 the  King 
excused  himself  and  told  me  he  would  do  what  I liked  to  make 
reparation.’  As  for  Frederick,  he,  in  Voltaire’s  own  words,  had 
4 scented  the  spy.’  They  could  no  longer  trust  each  other.  To 
the  misfortune  of  both,  they  loved  each  other  still. 

On  October  12,  then,  Voltaire  left  for  Brussels.  On  the  14th 
his  travelling  carriage  was  upset  and  he  was  robbed  by  the  people 
who  came  to  his  assistance.  The  wretched  village  in  which  he  hoped 
for  shelter  that  evening,  he  found  in  the  process  of  a conflagration. 
At  last  he  reached  Brunswick,  where  for  a few  days  he  was  royally 
entertained  by  the  Duke.  Finally,  he  returned  to  Brussels. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  divine  Emilie  had  been  sitting 
contented  and  smiling  in  Paris  while  her  lover  was  addressing 
tender  rhymes  to  princesses  in  Bayreuth.  Voltaire  had  been  away 
four  months — four  heart-burning,  chafing,  angry  months.  What 
unsatisfying  food  for  the  heart  were  diplomatic  despatches  after 
all ! Voltaire  was  one  whole  fortnight  without  writing  a single 
letter  to  his  mistress.  She  had  to  learn  his  movements  4 from 
ambassadors  and  gazettes.*  4 Such  conduct  would  alienate  anyone 
but  me,’  she  wrote  to  d’Argental,  always  her  confidant.  Then, 
to  add  insult  to  injury,  was  that  delay  at  the  court  of  the  Duke 
of  Brunswick.  Courts  and  kings ! Madame  du  Chatelet  was 
weary  of  them.  She  started  up  in  a passion  and  left  Paris  : was 


Mt.  49-50]  DIPLOMATIST  AND  COURTIER  143 

ill  with  a nervous  fever  at  Lille,  and  feverishly  reproachful  still 
when  she  met  her  Voltaire  at  last.  That  inevitable  storm  blew 
over  as  it  had  blown  over  before.  The  sun  came  out  again,  though 
it  was  a sun  in  a clouded  sky.  The  pair  went  to  Paris  together 
about  the  middle  of  November  1748 : Voltaire  to  report  on  his 
mission  and  to  be,  he  hoped,  substantially  rewarded. 

But  the  ill-fortune  which  always  dogged  him  beset  him  now. 
Amelot,  the  Foreign  Minister,  fell  out  of  favour,  and  with  him 
his  protegi,  Voltaire. 

No  two  people  in  the  world  were  so  used  to  chagrins  and  dis- 
appointments as  the  two  who  returned  to  Brussels  in  February 1744, 
and  in  the  spring  to  Cirey,  and  applied  their  old  panacea  for  every 
evil  in  life — work.  It  succeeded.  It  was  generally  successful. 
Very  few  letters  belong  to  the  early  months  of  this  year.  There 
was.  not  time  even  for  letter-writing.  Monsieur  Denis  died  in 
April,  leaving  behind  him  a bouncing  widow  of  seven-and-thirty. 

It  was  in  April  too  that  Voltaire  received  a very  satisfactory 
little  courtly  consolation,  to  compensate  him  for  many  rebuffs. 
Richelieu  engaged  him  to  write  a play  for  the  wedding  festivities 
of  the.  Dauphin  and  the  Infanta  of  Spain,  which  were  to  take 
place  in  the  autumn,  and  which  would  presently  demand  the 
presence  of  M.  de  Voltaire  at  Versailles. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  say  that  Voltaire  took  immense  trouble 
over  this  bagatelle,  because  he  always  took  immense  trouble  over 
everything.  All  his  works  are  as  good  as  he  could  make  them 
He  called  his  play  ‘ The  Princess  of  Navarre.’  He  laid  the  scene 
there  in  delicate  compliment  to  the  Infanta— and  for  the  practical 
reason  that  he  could  introduce  into  it  both  French  and  Spaniards 
with  their  gorgeous  medley  of  costume.  Rameau  was  to  write 
the  music.  There  were  to  be  the  loveliest  ballets,  processions, 
and  songs.  The  scenery  was  to  be  unique  in  splendour.  ‘ The 
Princess  of  Navarre  ’ is  what  would  now  be  called  a comic  opera 
and  as  such  was  certainly  unworthy  of  the  genius  of  Voltaire! 
Eut  it  was  not  unworthy  of  his  shrewdness.  If  it  would  but 
gain  him  some  trifling  post  at  Court,  the  favour  instead  of  the 
tear  of  the  King,  why,  then  it  would  give  him,  too,  the  right  to 
live  where  he  liked  in  peace,  would  cripple  the  power  of  Boyer 
of  censors,  of  Desfontaines,  might  open  to  him  the  doors  of  the 
Academy  and  gain  him  liberty  to  think— aloud.  It  was  worth 


144 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1744-45 


while  after  all.  He  worked  at  it  night  and  day.  He  wrote 
immense  letters  about  it  to  Richelieu  and  to  d’Argenson.  Cirey 
was  delightful,  priceless — ‘ Cirey-en-felicite  ’ once  more.  ‘ To  be 
free  and  loved  ...  is  what  the  kings  of  the  earth  are  not.’ 
Nevertheless,  to  be  free  and  loved  in  Cirey  alone  was  not  enough. 
1 1 am  engaged  in  writing  a divertissement  for  a Dauphin  and 
Dauphiness  whom  I shall  not  divert/  said  he,  and  again  to  Cide- 
ville  : ‘ Me ! writing  for  the  Court ! I am  afraid  I shall  only 
write  foolery.  One  only  writes  well  what  one  writes  from  choice/ 

But  he  wrote,  rewrote,  altered,  improved,  not  the  less.  On 
July  7,  President  Henault,  the  friend  of  Voltaire’s  friend  Madame 
du  Deffand,  came  to  spend  the  day  at  Cirey.  He  found  it  ‘ a 
delightful  retreat,  a refuge  of  peace,  harmony,  calm,  and  of  mutual 
esteem,  philosophy  and  poetry/  Voltaire  was  in  bed  when  the 
guest  arrived : working  hard  there,  as  usual.  Summer  was  on 
the  land.  The  house  was  a marvel.  Madame,  recalled  from  her 
exact  sciences,  was  a charming  hostess.  If  Voltaire  was  fifty 
years  old  and  ailing,  if  he  had  to  look  back  on  many  honours 
missed  and  favours  given  to  meaner  men,  his  4 Princess  of 
Navarre  ’ was  but  the  more  delightful  a compliment  for  being 
paid  so  late  and  so  unexpectedly.  He  read  it  to  the  President,  who 
wept  (though  the  ‘ Princess  ’ is  not  at  all  pathetic),  and  was  very 
nearly  as  interested  in  it,  and  as  pleased  with  it,  as  the  eager 
author  himself. 

In  September,  Voltaire  and  Madame  came  up  from  Cirey  to 
Champs-sur-Marne,  a village  only  five  leagues  from  Paris,  to  take 
part  in  the  rejoicings  which  celebrated  Louis  XV.’s  recovery  from 
an  illness  and  return  from  a campaign,  and  to  arrange  about  the 
production  of  the  6 Princess.’ 

One  night  Madame  insists  on  her  Voltaire  driving  up  with  her 
those  five  leagues  to  Paris,  to  witness  the  fireworks  and  festivities. 
Madame  has  her  own  carriage  and  her  country  coachman,  unused 
to  the  city.  She  is  in  grande  tenue  and  diamonds.  The  carriage 
gets  into  a crowd — that  light-hearted,  light-headed  mob  of  Paris — 
and  cannot  move  an  inch  until  three  o’clock  in  the  morning. 
Out  gets  Madame  followed  by  her  lean  Voltaire  (not  a little  dis- 
gusted and  amused  and  having  the  very  greatest  admiration  for  this 
extraordinary  woman’s  pluck  and  spirit),  pushes  her  way  through 
the  crowd,  marches  straight  into  President  Henault’s  house  in  the 


^Et.  50—51]  DIPLOMATIST  AND  COURTIER 


145 


Rue  Saint-Honore  and  takes  possession  of  it.  The  President  is 
from  home.  Madame  sends  for  a chicken  from  a restaurant,  and 
she  and  her  Voltaire  sit  down  to  supper  with  perfect  philosophy 
and  enjoyment,  and  drink  to  the  President’s  very  good  health. 

Voltaire  recounted  the  story  to  Henault  a few  days  afterwards. 
The  man  who  had  undertaken  to  write  a court  divertissement  had 
laid  himself  open  to  all  kinds  of  social  adventures,  amusements, 
boredoms.  In  the  beginning  of  the  January  of  1745  he  took  up 
his  abode  at  Versailles  to  superintend  rehearsals,  arrange  scenery, 
and  accommodate  his  verses  to  Rameau’s  music. 

It  was  twenty  years  since  Voltaire  had  stayed  at  the  French 
Court.  Did  he  remember  how  it  had  wearied  and  sickened  him  ? 
He  forgot  nothing.  The  Court  was  but  a means  to  an  end  then, 
and  was  but  a means  to  an  end  now.  He  wrote  to  Theriot  that 
he  felt  there  like  an  atheist  in  a church.  4 Don’t  you  pity  a poor 
devil  who  is  a king’s  fool  at  fifty  ? ’ he  asked  Cideville ; ‘ . . . 
worried  to  death  with  musicians  and  scene-painters,  actors  and 
actresses,  singers  and  dancers.’  He  complained  how  he  had  to 
rush  from  Paris  to  Versailles,  and  write  verses  in  the  post-chaise  ; 
how  he  must  take  care  to  praise  the  King  loudly,  the  Dauphine 
delicately,  the  royal  family  softly,  and  to  conciliate  the  Court 
without  displeasing  the  town.  Since  it  must  be  done,  Voltaire 
was  the  man  to  do  it  as  it  had  never  been  done  before. 

On  February  18,  1745,  died  Armand  Arouet,  aged  nearly 
sixty.  Voltaire  received  the  news  only  seven  days  before  the 
fete  was  to  take  place,  and  hastened  from  the  Court  to  the 
funeral  of  his  ‘Jansenist  of  a brother.’  The  two  had  met 
little  of  late.  But  they  had  always  been  separated  by  a gulf 
wider  than  that  of  any  physical  distance — a diversity  of  character 
and  ideas.  Voltaire  could  no  more  understand  an  Armand  than 
an  Armand  a Voltaire.  Long  after,  at  Ferney,  Voltaire  told 
Madame  Suard  how  his  brother  had  had  so  great  a zeal  for 
martyrdom  that  he  had  once  said  to  a friend,  who  did  not  seem 
to  care  about  it,  ‘Well,  if  you  do  not  want  to  be  hanged,  at 
least  do  not  put  off  other  people  ! ’ 

The  fanatic  left  the  sceptic  as  little  of  his  fortune  as  he  dared, 
having  due  regard  to  public  opinion.  Voltaire  was  enriched  by 
his  brother’s  death  only  by  six  thousand  francs  per  annum.  He 
feigned  no  overwhelming  sorrow  at  his  loss.  He  was  back  at 

L 


146  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1745 

Versailles  before  the  contents  of  the  will  were  known  to  him, 
putting  the  last  touches  to  his  ‘ Princess.’ 

The  fetes  began  on  February  23.  They  were  as  gorgeous  as 
that  old  regime  knew  how  to  make  them — with  a prodigal 
gorgeousness  which  perished  with  that  regime  itself  and  will  be 
no  more  for  ever. 

A special  theatre  had  been  built  in  the  horse-training  ground 
near  the  palace.  Time,  labour,  money — the  lavish  expenditure 
of  each  was  incalculable.  At  six  o’clock  on  the  evening  of 
February  25  there  assembled  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and 
splendid  audiences  that  ever  gratified  the  heart  of  a playwright. 
The  King,  who  was  certainly  nothing  in  the  world  if  he  was  not 
an  imposingly  decked  figurehead,  was  there  with  his  royal  family. 
The  great  ladies  glittered  in  diamonds.  The  nobles  were  in  the 
splendid  robes  of  their  order.  It  was  a night  to  remember. 

‘ The  Princess  of  Navarre  ’ was  acted  to  an  audience  who 
talked  gaily  all  through  it  and  went  into  raptures  of  delight  and 
applause  when  it  was  finished.  M.  de  Voltaire  compared  the 
chatter  to  the  hum  of  bees  round  their  queen.  But  the  King — 
that  dullest  of  all  gross  mortals — condescended  to  express  him- 
self amused.  He  commanded  a second  performance.  If  that 
fashionable  audience  did  make  more  noise  than  the  'parterre  of 
the  Comedie,  Voltaire  could  afford  to  shrug  his  shoulders.  ‘The 
King  is  grateful.  The  Mirepoix  cannot  harm  me.  What  more 
do  I want?  ’ he  wrote  to  d’Argental.  His  Majesty  told  Marshal 
Saxe  that  that  ‘ Princess  ’ was  above  criticism,  and  Voltaire  there- 
upon told  Madame  du  Chatelet  that  he  looked  on  Louis  XV.  as 
the  very  best  critic  in  the  kingdom.  The  moment  was  one  of 
laughter  and  triumph.  To  be  sure,  it  had  not  been  gained  without 
hard  work.  In  addition  to  the  ‘ Princess,’  Voltaire  had  written  a 
poem  on  the  ‘ Events  of  the  Year  ’ (1744)  in  which  he  may  be  said 
to  have  fooled  Louis  to  the  top  of  his  bent,  and  paid  that  monarch 
the  most  outrageous  compliments  upon  his  personal  courage  and 
his  popularity. 

But  it  was  the  means  to  an  end — an  end  which,  to  Voltaire, 
justified  any  means.  This  brilliant  M.  de  Voltaire  was  so  very 
entertaining  and  fair-spoken  that  he  must  on  the  spot  be  made 
Historiographer  of  France  at  an  annual  income  of  two  thousand 
francs,  and  on  the  very  next  vacancy  Gentleman-in-Ordinary  to 


^T.  51] 


DIPLOMATIST  AND  COURTIER 


147 


Ourself ! What  nobler  reward  could  wit  and  merit  hope  for  ? 
On  April  1,  1745,  the  brevet  of  Historiographer  was  signed  by 
Louis  XV.  On  April  16  Voltaire  and  Madame  du  Chatelet 
hastened  to  the  bedside  of  her  son,  sick  of  the  smallpox  at 
Chalons,  to  save  him,  if  that  might  be,  from  the  ‘ignorant 
tyranny  of  the  physicians.’  Voltaire,  as  has  been  said,  did  so 
save  him,  with  much  lemonade  and  a little  common-sense.  He 
became  ambassador  in  England  under  the  ministry  of  Choiseul ; 
and,  at  last,  victim  of  the  Revolution. 

After  forty  days  of  quarantine  the  Historiographer  of  France 
rejoined  the  Court. 


148 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1745 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  POPE,  THE  POMPADOUR,  AND  1 THE  TEMPLE  OP  GLORY  ’ 

The  new  favour  Voltaire  had  obtained  had  to  be  paid  for  like  any 
other  advantage  of  fortune.  Then,  as  now,  the  finer  the  post,  the 
more  ennui  and  exaction  in  filling  it.  The  nearer  he  climbs  to 
the  sun,  the  more  scorched  and  weary  the  climber.  Voltaire 
found  out  that  simple  fact  of  nature  very  soon. 

The  truth  is  he  was  a great  deal  too  clever  to  be  wasted. 
Was  it  a diplomatic  letter  that  was  required?  The  Historio- 
grapher had  had  practice  in  such  things,  and  would  naturally  do 
them  better  than  anyone  else.  A poem  ? He  was  a poet.  An 
epigram  ? Once  upon  a time  his  epigrams  had  been  so  dange- 
rously clever  that  he  had  positively  been  bastilled  for  them.  Four 
days  after  th s fete  the  newly  made  courtier  had  written  to  Theriot 
that  he  was  so  utterly  weary  he  had  neither  hands,  feet,  nor  head. 
He  spent  the  whole  day  hunting  up  anecdotes  and  the  whole  night 
making  rhymes.  He  had  the  reputation  of  a wit,  and  the  Court 
felt  defrauded  if  he  did  not  make  a bon  mot  every  time  he  opened 
his  lips.  Then  came  the  French  victory  of  Fontenoy  over  the 
English — and  of  course  the  Historiographer  must  celebrate  that 
historical  event  in  an  ode.  It  is  but  just  to  Voltaire  to  say  that  if 
he  was  in  some  sort  belying  his  principles  by  being  at  Court  at  all, 
when  there,  he  did,  in  so  far  as  might  be,  live  up  to  them.  He  had 
pleaded  for  peace  pretty  openly  in  those  official  documents,  and 
pointed  out  better  ways  to  glory  than  the  way  of  battle. 

But,  after  all,  though  war  is  deplorable,  if  war  there  must  be, 
let  Us  win  by  all  means  if  we  can.  Even  a peace  advocate  might 
feel  some  such  sentiment.  One  peace  advocate,  with  his  facts 
drawn  direct  from  a letter  of  d’Argenson’s,  written  from  the  scene 
of  action  itself  about  May  16,  1745,  sat  down  in  a fine  glow  of 
enthusiasm  and  produced  his  heroic  poem,  of  three  hundred  lines 


Mt.  51] 


THE  POPE 


149 


and  entitled  ‘ Fontenoy/  on  the  spot.  Paris  was  delighted.  The 
King  was  content.  Five  editions  were  sold  in  ten  days.  The 
Historiographer,  of  course,  corrected,  embellished,  altered,  inde- 
fatigably.  ‘ This  battle  has  given  me  a great  deal  more  trouble  to 
celebrate  than  it  gave  the  King  to  win  it/  he  observed,  very  truly. 
He  was  plagued  out  of  his  life  by  the  Court  ladies  who  really 
must  insist  on  the  poet  flattering  in  his  poem  all  their  cousins 
and  lovers  who  had  taken  even  the  smallest  part  in  the  fight.  ‘ My 
head  swims/  he  wrote.  He  grumbled.  But  he  was  not  ill  con- 
tent. Presently,  ‘ Fontenoy  7 received  the  compliment  of  being 
clumsily  burlesqued,  and  a gay  Voltaire  answered  the  burlesques 
in  a ‘ Critical  Letter  from  a Fine  Lady  to  a Fine  Gentleman  of 
Paris’ — dainty,  light,  rallying,  graceful — and  as  goodhumoured 
as  witty.  If  his  ‘ Princess  7 had  won  him  favour,  ‘ Fontenoy  7 
had  sealed  it.  He  had  gained  the  King.  To  keep  him  there 
remained  but  to  gain  also  the  woman  and  the  priest  who  ruled 
him. 

Looking  back  long  after  on  this  period  of  his  life — 4 It  was 
not  the  time  of  my  glory  if  I ever  had  any,7  said  Voltaire.  It  was 
not.  To  fawn  on  that  sensual  stupidity  the  King,  to  cajole  the 
Pope,  to  flatter  the  mistress — they  were  not  occupations  that 
commended  themselves  to  a man  with  such  a passion  for  work 
and  such  a supreme  consciousness  of  a mission  in  life  crying 
aloud  to  be  fulfilled,  as  Voltaire.  But  the  end — the  end  was 
everything.  How  should  he  speak  truth  if  he  were  gagged  ? 
What  hope  of  freedom  to  speak  in  these  times  without  the  royal 
indulgence  ? The  means  were  contemptible  enough,  be  it  granted. 
But  they  were  the  only  means.  What  matter  how  dirty  the  road 
if  it  led  to  the  goal  ? That  was  Voltaire’s  idea — not  highminded, 
nor  quite  without  excuse,  and  perfectly  characteristic.  He  plunged 
through  that  Court  mire  alert,  gay,  and  vigorous  ; flattered  the 
women  ; amused  the  courtiers  ; was  eternally  witty  and  gallant ; 
and  just  sarcastic  enough  in  his  wit  to  make  himself  respected. 

And  then  he  set  to  work  to  gain  the  Pope.  Hardly  any  other 
transaction  of  his  life  shows  him  as  matchlessly  clever  and 
ingenious  as  this  one.  He  was  a sceptic—  that  is,  if  a sceptic  be 
one  who  believes  in  a creed  of  his  own  rather  than  the  creed  of 
other  persons.  He  had  the  reputation  of  an  atheist.  The  Church 
had  banned  his  books,  and  discovered  some  subtle  innuendo 


150 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1745 


against  herself  in  every  line  he  wrote.  Worse  than  all,  the  man 
was  a satirist,  a jester,  a mocker,  who  viewed  the  huge  pretensions 
and  the  gigantic  claims  of  Rome  with  a cynic  gleam  in  his  eyes 
and  a laugh  on  his  lips. 

He  started  his  bold  campaign  by  reading  the  whole  of  the 
Pope’s  works  and  complimenting  that  very  good-natured  repre- 
sentative of  St.  Peter,  Benedict  XIV.,  on  their  ability.  Benedict 
thereupon  sent  his  £ dear  son  ’ a couple  of  beautiful  medals  with 
his  own  portrait  engraven  thereon  as  a return  civility.  ‘ He  looks 
like  a bon  diable ,’  wrote  the  graceless  Voltaire  to  d’ Argenson,  £ who 
knows  pretty  well  how  much  all  that  is  worth.’ 

And  then  on  August  17  Voltaire  wrote  to  beg  permission  to 
dedicate  that  ‘ Mahomet,’  which  Lord  Chesterfield  had  considered 
a covert  attack  on  Christianity,  to  his  Holiness  himself.  The 
letter  with  which  he  sent  the  play  is  a masterpiece  of  subtlety. 
The  Voltairian  daring  and  adroitness,  which  are  without  their 
counterpart  in  history,  succeeded  of  course.  If  one  can  be  at  once 
supremely  bold  and  supremely  clever,  success  is  a foregone  con- 
clusion. Voltaire  was  lucky  in  his  man — and  knew  his  man  to 
perfection.  Benedict  XIV.  was  bonhommo  rather  than  an  ideal 
pope,  and  did  accept  his  own  infallibility  and  the  astounding 
assumptions  of  his  Church,  with  a great  many  comprehensive 
qualifications. 

He  was  quite  wise  enough  in  his  generation  to  perceive  that 
it  was  better  to  have  a subtle  Voltaire  for  a friend  than  an  enemy. 
He  therefore  sent  him  his  Apostolic  Benediction : and  accepted 
the  dedication  of  ‘ your  admirable  tragedy  ’ in  a charming  letter 
dated  September  19.  Voltaire,  on  his  part,  said  he  laid  a work 
against  the  founder  of  a false  religion  at  the  feet  of  the  chief  of 
the  true  religion : ‘ kissed  the  Pope’s  holy  feet  ’ and  ‘ sacred 
purple  ’ indefatigably  in  every  letter  he  wrote ; flattered  the  car- 
dinals and  went  into  ecstasies  over  Benedict’s  virtues.  The 
correspondence  between  the  two  was  printed  as  a preface  to  a 
new  edition  of  ‘ Mahomet  ’ in  French  and  Italian ; and  M.  de 
Voltaire,  with  his  tongue  in  his  cheek  and  not  a little  satisfac- 
tion in  his  soul,  is  proclaimed  before  all  men  the  protege  of 
Rome ! 

Long  before  this  desirable  consummation,  as  far  back  as  May  8 
of  this  1745,  he  had  written  with  a gay  confidence  that  the  devout 


Me.  51] 


THE  POMPADOUR 


151 


might  now  ask  his  protection  for  this  world  and  the  next.  The 
subject  never  ceased  to  afford  his  sense  of  irony  the  most  delicious 
amusement.  But  better  than  being  amused  he  was  henceforth 
‘ covered  from  his  enemies  by  the  stole  of  Heaven’s  vicegerent.’ 
The  Pope,  it  has  been  seen,  did  not  accept  the  dedication  of 
‘ Mahomet  ’ until  September.  Before  that  Voltaire  was  hard  at 
work  to  win  another  influence — the  influence  of  Madame  d’Etioles, 
afterwards  the  Marquise  de  Pompadour. 

The  summer  of  1745  was  but  a dull  summer  at  Court.  In 
May  the  King  joined  his  army.  What  were  the  courtiers  and 
flatterers  to  do  with  no  one  to  flatter  and  toady  ? The  firmament 
was  dark  without  its  Sun : and  would  have  been  darker  yet  but 
for  the  steady  rising  of  one  brilliant  star.  Clever  head  and  cold 
heart,  a cool  and  persistent  ambition,  a most  subtle  intellect,  and 
a morality  which  never  interfered  with  an  early  and  plainly 
avowed  intention  to  become  the  King’s  mistress — such  was  the 
woman  who  ‘ with  her  harlot’s  foot  on  its  neck  ’ ruled  France  for 
nineteen  years,  lost  it  India  and  Canada,  and  spurred  it,  galloping, 
to  the  Revolution.  With  every  charm,  every  grace,  every  accom- 
plishment that  can  make  a woman  irresistible — all  carefully 
learnt  for  that  one  noble  end,  the  King’s  subjugation — five-and- 
twenty  years  old,  the  wife  of  a wealthy  bourgeois , M.  d’Etioles, 
living  in  the  country,  and  having  already  begun,  and  coolly  wait- 
ing to  finish,  her  conquest  of  the  royal  heart — such  was  the 
Pompadour  when  Voltaire  first  knew  her.  In  May  he  was  her 
correspondent.  In  June  he  was  her  visitor — drinking  her  tokay, 
and  paying  her  the  loveliest  compliments,  and  discussing  with 
her  gravely  all  subjects  in  heaven  and  earth,  for  she  had  not 
only  natural  cleverness,  but  a fine  cultivation,  and,  in  her  heart, 
said  Voltaire,  was  always  ‘ one  of  us.’  She  confided  in  him  her 
design  on — she  called  it  her  passion  for — the  King. 

In  July  Voltaire  was  addressing  verses  to  his  ‘ dear  and  true 
Pompadour’  and  saying  he  might  well  call  her  in  advance  by  a 
name  which  rhymed  with  ‘ amour  ’ and  would  soon  be  the  loveliest 
name  in  France.  She  was  formally  created  Marquise  and  came 
up  to  Court.  She  was  the  mistress  of  Louis.  She  was  the  mis- 
tress of  France.  And — she  was  the  friend  of  Voltaire. 

If  he  had  thought  it  necessary  to  justify  himself  for  that 
friendship,  only  he  did  not  think  it  necessary  at  all,  he  might  have 


152 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1745 


argued,  as  he  might  have  argued  as  to  his  alliance  with  the  Pope, 
that  it  was  a pity  kings  should  be  governed  by  priests  and  women ; 
but  that  since  they  were,  the  best  and  wisest  thing  to  do  was  to 
get  the  influence  of  the  priests  and  women  on  the  right  side. 
What  might  a Pompadour  not  do  ? ‘ One  of  us  ’ — that  meant 

a philosopher,  mentally  capable  of  seeing  new  points  of  view, 
acquiring  new  truths,  breaking  from  old  superstitions.  In  the 
hollow  of  her  hand  she  held  the  happiness  or  the  misery  of  thou- 
sands. Not  only  the  welfare  of  a proud  kingdom  but  the  well- 
being of  those  silent  suffering  units  who  peopled  the  kingdom, 
hung,  as  too  often  before,  on  a shameless  woman’s  smile  or  frown. 
And  if  she  could  make  or  mar  a country  and  a nation,  how  much 
more  a Court  poet  ? 

Voltaire  had  begun  writing  to  Rameau’s  music  an  opera  called 
‘ The  Temple  of  Glory,’  to  celebrate  Louis  XV.’s  victories  in  his 
campaign.  It  was  just  as  well  from  Madame  de  Pompadour’s 
point  of  view  to  be  on  the  right  side  of  such  a very  poignant  wit 
as  M.  de  Voltaire’s.  She  was  on  the  right  side  of  it.  With  all 
his  usual  audacity  the  poet  inserted  in  his  opera  the  most  unmis- 
takable and  complimentary  allusions  to  her  and  her  King  and  to  the 
relations  between  them.  He  was  busy  with  other  work  too.  Only 
one  disease — it  was  an  internal  complaint  this  time — and  an  opera 
on  hand  at  once  would  have  been  idleness  indeed.  All  through 
the  autumn  of  this  1745  he  was  writing  the  authorised  historical 
account  of  the  King’s  campaigns,  an  honour  which  d’Argenson 
had  procured  for  him,  and  which  afterwards  swelled  into  his 
‘ History  of  Louis  XV.’  Now,  it  was  known  as  the  ‘ Campaigns  of 
the  King.’  With  a very  rare  love  of  justice,  at  a time  when  national 
feeling  ran  high,  he  wrote  to  Sir  Everard  Falkener,  now  secretary 
to  the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  to  ask  him  for  first-hand  facts  regard- 
ing the  war  so  that  the  historian  might  do  justice  to  the  ‘ many 
great  actions  done  by  your  nation  ’ — our  enemies,  the  English. 
He  had  time  to  read  the  back  numbers  of  three  past  years  of  the 
‘ London  Magazine  ’ in  English.  Madame  du  Chatelet  was  always 
with  him.  In  June  they  had  been  at  Chalons  for  a fortnight 
with  Madame  du  Deffand.  In  October  they  went  to  Fontaine- 
bleau— Madame  creating  not  a little  talk  and  scandal  by  insisting, 
on  the  way  there,  on  a right,  or  a supposed  right,  of  her  family 
to  ride  in  the  best  place  in  the  first  coach  after  the  Queen’s — to 


From  the  Painting  by  Francois  Bouelur  in  the  possession  of 
Baron  Nathaniel  de  Botlischild. 


DE 


MADAME 


POMPADOUR. 


M t.  51] 


‘ THE  TEMPLE  OF  GLORY’ 


153 


the  exclusion  of  other  noble  and  indignant  ladies,  who  had,  or 
thought  they  had,  similar  rights. 

In  the  comparative  quiet  of  Fontainebleau  Voltaire  worked  at 
his  ‘ Campaigns  ’ — i as  I always  work — with  passion.’ 

He  and  Madame  returned  to  Versailles  in  November  in  time 
to  welcome  the  King.  On  the  26th  of  that  month  the  Sun  was 
beaming  graciously  in  his  firmament  again — after  a campaign 
in  which  he  had  done  nothing  but  look  on  from  a very  cautious 
distance.  And  on  November  27,  1745,  appeared  ‘ The  Temple  of 
Glory.’ 

The  two  principal  characters  in  it  are  Trajan,  great  in  war  but 
the  friend  of  peace,  emperor,  Roman — and  lover  : and  Plotine, 
the  beloved.  The  dullest  among  the  audience  must  have  seen 
whom  these  characters  represented. 

Ta  plus  belle  gloire 
Vient  du  tendre  amour, 

sang  the  chorus  to  Trajan.  And  did  not  amour  rhyme  with 
Pompadour  for  ever  and  ever  ? Among  the  spectators  were  the 
injured  Queen,  who  had  no  reason  now  to  love  this  M.  de  Vol- 
taire ; and  Madame  du  Chatelet,  taking  advantage  of  another 
hereditary  right  and  sitting  in  her  royal  mistress’s  presence. 
Rameau’s  music  was  delightful  and  the  dancing  perfection. 
Richelieu  had  superintended  the  mise-en-scene.  The  curtain  went 
down  on  a tumult  of  applause.  And  Voltaire,  with  that  boyish 
French  capacity  of  his  for  being  intoxicated  by  the  very  thin 
wine  of  a social  success,  strolled  up  to  the  royal  box  and  said  to 
Richelieu,  to  be  overheard  of  the  King,  ‘ Trajan  est-il  content?  ’ 

There  are  a dozen  versions  of  the  story.  There  are  several 
vehement  denials  that  any  such  incident  took  place.  But  there 
is  no  smoke  without  fire,  and  the  episode  is  characteristic  enough 
of  a pleased  and  audacious  Voltaire.  He  does  not  ever  allude  to 
it  himself : but  that  may  be  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  Trajan 
was  not  very  content  with  the  too  daring  question.  He  had 
reason  to  be  a little  sulky  at  his  royal  name  being  so  openly 
coupled — with  Plotine’s.  One  authority  has  it  that  he  turned 
his  back  on  Voltaire  and  addressed  compliments  to  Rameau. 

But  ‘ The  Temple  of  Glory  ’ was  repeated  ; and  the  Sun  came 
out  from  behind  the  little  cloud  as  bright  as  ever. 


154 


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[1745-46 


The  next  court  divertissement , performed  on  December  22, 
was  not  indeed  written  by  Voltaire,  but  by  Jean  Jacques  Rous- 
seau, citizen  of  Geneva,  with  whom  Voltaire  was  now  brought 
into  a polite  correspondence,  and  with  whom  he  was  hereafter  to 
fight  as  he  had  never  fought  even  with  Rousseau’s  old  exiled 
namesake  at  The  Hague. 

On  January  16  of  the  new  year,  1746,  Longchamp  entered  as 
a kind  of  confidential  valet  into  the  service  of  Madame  du  Chatelet, 
and  from  her  service  was  shortly  drafted  into  that  of  M.  de  Voltaire. 
Half  secretary,  half  servant,  and  all  observer,  Longchamp  lived 
to  write  memoirs  of  unusual  interest  and  fidelity,  and  to  make 
Voltaire  a proof  of  the  fallacy  of  the  saying  that  no  man  is  a 
hero  to  his  valet.  Longchamp,  Collini,  Wagniere,  who  were  in 
turns  the  servant-secretaries  of  Voltaire,  have  all  painted  his  pic- 
ture as  most  generous,  hasty,  and  kind,  with  the  sensitive  temper 
of  genius  and  the  forethought  and  consideration  for  others,  even 
for  dependents,  which  genius  too  often  lacks.  To  Voltaire’s 
generation  the  canaille  were  as  dirt  beneath  the  feet ; but  not  to 
Voltaire.  Irritable  and  impulsive  in  speech,  he  had  at  times  to 
his  servants  the  manners  of  the  old  regime  ; but  he  had  ever  the 
heart  of  a better  age. 

Abundantly  generous — 4 a miser  of  nothing  but  his  time  ’ — 
one  servant  speaks  in  warm  terms  of  his  1 solid  and  durable  in- 
dulgence and  goodness,’  and  another  of  his  kindness,  sympathy, 
and  forgiveness.  The  character  that  masters  give  their  servants 
is  often  unreliable  through  ignorance  or  weak  indulgence ; but 
the  character  that  servants  give  their  masters  rarely  falls  into 
either  of  these  errors. 

From  that  fiery  inquisition,  the  inquisition  of  the  domestic 
eye,  Voltaire  is  one  of  the  few  great  men  in  history  whose 
character  comes  out  better  than  it  went  in. 

All  the  early  months  of  1746  were  taken  up  in  keeping  the 
vantage  ground  he  had  gained  and  in  gaining  more.  He  wrote 
letters  to  Italian  cardinals  in  Italian.  He  reminded  the  Pope  of 
the  dutiful  existence  of  his  dutiful  son.  He  pleased  Madame  de 
Pompadour.  He  amused  sulky  Trajan.  He  began  a regular 
Voltairian  battle  against  Charles  Roy,  an  old  scurrilous  minor 
poet,  who  stood  not  ill  at  Court,  himself  hoped  for  a chair  in  the 
Academy,  and  had  written  an  unsuccessful  rival  piece  to  Voltaire’s 


Mt.  51-52] 


‘THE  TEMPLE  OF  GLORY 9 


155 


‘ Princess.’  These  occupations  were  very  fatiguing.  But  they 
were  essential.  On  March  17  a fresh  vacancy  fell  in  at  the 
French  Academy,  and  who  should  have  it  if  not  Voltaire  ? The 
gods  were  more  favourable  now.  The  candidate  canvassed  for 
himself  feverishly.  He  wrote  an  artful  letter  to  the  Lieutenant 
of  Police  and  a beautiful  one  to  Father  La  Tour,  one  of  his  old 
schoolmasters,  expressing  a warm  affection  for  religion  and  the 
Jesuits.  If  the  thing  was  to  be  done  at  all  it  must  be  done 
thoroughly. 

On  April  25,  1746,  the  greatest  literary  man  of  the  age,  who 
was  fifty-two  years  old  and  a member  of  almost  every  other 
Academy  in  Europe,  was  at  last  formally  elected  to  the  Literary 
Society  of  his  own  country.  On  May  9 he  read  before  it  his 
preliminary  discourse,  Voltairian  in  every  line. 


156 


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[1746 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  ACADEMY,  AND  A VISIT 

Who  is  it  that  having  climbed  to  a height  does  not  look  on  the 
prospect  that  it  affords  him,  and  wonder  if  that  prospect  be  worth 
the  bogs  and  the  mire,  the  stones  and  the  boulders,  the  steep  places 
and  the  thorns  that  lay  on  the  way  to  it  ? Voltaire  was  not  given 
to  useless  reflections.  But  it  could  but  occur  to  his  cynic  soul 
that  his  friendship  with  a king’s  mistress  had  gained  him  a reward 
that  all  his  writings  and  genius  could  not ; just  as  he  had 
declared  in  a verse,  whose  gay  bitterness  is  Voltaire’s  only,  that 
his  ‘ Henriade,’  his  4 Zaire,’  and  his  4 Alzire  ’ had  not  won  him  a 
single  glance  of  kingly  favour,  while  for  a ‘farce  of  the  fair,’ 
‘ The  Princess  of  Navarre,’  honours  and  fortune  had  rained  on  him. 
He  might  well  be  a cynic. 

What  use  would  that  coveted  chair  among  the  Forty  be  to 
him  now  he  had  it  ? Was  it  the  hall-mark,  the  sign  and  seal  of 
talent  ? That  sign  and  seal  were  on  every  line  the  man  had 
written.  He,  who  had  made  by  his  works  so  startling  an  im- 
pression on  the  human  mind  that,  though  he  had  a host  of 
enemies,  adorers,  fearers,  none  could  be  indifferent  with  regard  to 
him,  had  surely  no  need  of  the  cold  distinction  of  an  academical 
honour.  But  he  thought  that  it  would  be  valuable  as  a refuge 
from  lettres  de  cachet  and  official  interference.  It  conferred 
various  legal  privileges.  It  would  be  his  passport,  obtained  from 
red-tapeism,  to  be  flaunted  in  the  face  of  it,  to  show  the  Voltairian 
right  to  say  what  a Voltaire  pleased.  The  position  further 
gratified  a naive  and  very  human  vanity.  And  now  I am  here  I 
will  be  so  uncommonly  active,  lively,  and  reforming  as  will  drive 
my  thirty-nine  solemn,  pompous,  formal,  conservative,  elderly 
brethren  pretty  well  distracted  ! 

It  was  de  rigueur  in  the  inaugural  address  to  do  nothing  but 


tEt.  52] 


THE  ACADEMY,  AND  A VISIT 


157 


praise  Cardinal  Richelieu  and  flatter  one’s  predecessor  in  the 
chair.  And  up  gets  M.  de  Voltaire  and  delivers  a brilliant  dis- 
course on  the  French  language  and  French  taste — smooth, 
polished,  graceful,  and  with  the  grip  of  the  iron  hand  felt  always 
through  the  velvet  glove. 

‘Gentlemen,  your  founder  put  into  your  society  all  the 
nobility  and  grandeur  of  his  soul : he  wished  you  to  be  always 
free  and  equal.’ 

‘ No  great  things  without  great  trouble.* 

‘ It  is  precisely,  gentlemen,  because  there  is  so  much  wit  in 
France  that  there  is  so  little  real  genius.’ 

No  doubt  those  thirty-nine  literary  fogies  had  some  sort  of 
notion  what  a daring  spirit  they  had  admitted  into  their  prosy 
body  before  that  discourse  was  ended.  The  artful  Voltaire  did 
not  forget  to  introduce  into  it  dainty  compliments  to  such  varied 
persons  as  the  King  of  France,  the  Empress  of  Russia,  and  the 
Pope  ; Frederick  the  Great  and  Maupertuis  (who  spoke  and  wrote 
the  great  French  language  as  if  it  were  their  own) ; Montesquieu, 
Fontenelle,  and  Henault,  who  adorned  it ; and  my  old  school- 
master, d’ Olivet. 

Sympathising  and  delighting  in  his  genius  and  success  was 
a certain  new  obscure  young  friend  of  Voltaire’s,  who  had  just 
come  up  to  Paris  to  seek  his  fortune,  and  who  was  named 
Marmontel. 

‘ Sine  virtute  amicitia  existere  non  potest,’  says  Cicero.  If  a 
man  may  be  judged  by  the  company  he  keeps,  Voltaire’s  character 
should  not  be  meted  a wholly  unmerciful  sentence.  He  had 
too  in  himself,  in  an  extraordinary  degree,  the  noble  talent  of 
friendship. 

Fifty  years  after  his  school  days  he  was  still  writing  to  Abbe 
d’Olivet,  in  terms  of  tenderest  respect  and  affection.  He  began, 
as  has  been  seen,  his  lifelong  attachment  to  his  ‘guardian  angel,’ 
d’Argental,  at  the  same  date  and  place.  ‘ I am  not  like  most  of 
our  Parisians,’  he  wrote  to  Cideville,  ‘ I love  my  friends  better 
than  superfluities ; and  I prefer  a man  of  letters  to  a good  cook 
and  two  carriage-horses.  One  always  has  enough  for  others  when 
one  knows  how  to  restrict  oneself.’  He  acted  on  that  principle 
through  life.  There  must  surely  have  been  something  more 
than  commonly  lovable  in  a character  which  three  years  earlier 


158 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1746 


than  this,  in  1742,  had  commanded  the  love  and  admiration  of 
Vauvenargues,  the  young  soldier,  the  splendid  thinker — daring 
spirit  and  noble  mind.  That  friendship  appealed  not  in  vain  to 
Voltaire  on  the  finest  side  of  his  character,  at  the  very  moment 
when  a Court,  a king,  a Pompadour,  worldly  gain,  and  the  bauble 
of  official  favour  tempted  him  on  his  worst.  The  pair  wrote 
each  other  long  letters,  philosophic,  thoughtful,  enlightened. 
Vauvenargues  loved  to  call  Voltaire  his  ‘dear  master.'  And  the 
master  had  for  the  pupil  the  tender  respect,  the  generous 
admiration  which  a great  father  might  feel  for  the  possibilities  of 
a son  whom  his  fond  hopes  love  to  fancy  greater  still.  The  son 
went  the  way  of  all  flesh  in  1747,  aged  thirty-two.  He  left  the 
world  only  one  work  ; but  those  ‘ Maxims  9 have  been  justly  said 
to  give  the  soul  of  man  an  impetus  towards  truth.  They  are  too 
little  known. 

Marmontel  was  of  a different  calibre.  A young,  struggling, 
literary  man  in  the  provinces,  he  wrote  to  the  chief  of  his  pro- 
fession, now  sunning  in  court  favour,  for  his  advice.  ‘ Come  up 
to  Paris,'  wrote  the  impulsive  Voltaire  at  the  end  of  1745.  He 
thought  letters  the  noblest  of  all  professions.  To  be  sure,  it  was 
one  not  merely  precarious,  but  generally  ruinous.  But  then,  to 
deliver  one's  message — to  help  truth  by  speaking  it — a Voltaire, 
if  he  could,  would  have  encouraged  the  merest  stutterer  to  do  it, 
such  as  Marmontel  was  not.  In  the  midst  of  the  preparations 
for  ‘ The  Temple  of  Glory  ' he  had  time  to  obtain  the  promise  of 
a post  for  his  protege  from  the  Comptroller- General  of  Finance. 
Up  comes  Marmontel  to  Paris,  six  louis  in  his  pockets,  and  a 
translation.  And  the  Comptroller- General  has  fallen  out  of 
favour  and  has  no  place  to  give  away  ! Voltaire  broke  the  news 
as  gently  as  he  could.  Perhaps  he  looked  the  while  out  of  his 
brilliant  eyes  to  see  how  this  new  metal  stood  the  furnace. 
Marmontel  said  that  Adversity  was  his  oldest  acquaintance  and 
that  he  was  not  afraid  of  her.  And  M.  de  Voltaire  took  upon 
himself  to  provide  for  him  until  his  talents  should  make  him 
independent.  A hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  and  in  Paris  such 
conduct  does  not  strike  the  reader  as  nearly  so  generous  and 
Quixotic  as  if  the  same  event  had  occurred  in  London  and  to-day. 
Yet  the  profession  of  letters  was  very  much  worse  then  than  it  is 
now.  Voltaire  had  had  unsuccessful  literary  proteges  dependent 


JEt.  52] 


THE  ACADEMY,  AND  A VISIT 


159 


on  him  for  an  unpleasantly  long  time  before  this,  it  will  be 
remembered.  He  remembered  it,  no  doubt.  He  was  more  for- 
tunate in  the  present  instance.  Taught,  advised,  encouraged  by 
Voltaire,  Marmontel  became  the  Marmontel  of  successful  tragedies, 
of  the  ‘ Contes  Moraux,’  of  c Belisaire,’  and  of  the  ‘ Memoirs.’ 

In  his  hope  that  his  chair  at  the  Academy  would  afford  him 
a little  peace  and  rest,  Voltaire  was  at  first  very  much  mistaken. 
His  new  honour  was  a signal  for  every  enemy  he  had  in  the 
world — and  he  had  a great  many — to  set  upon  him.  Every 
envious,  snarling  cur  of  the  scurrilous  Grub  Street  of  Paris 
came  yelping  at  the  mastiff’s  heels.  Old  Eoy  burlesqued  and 
lampooned  him  ; and  the  thin-skinned  poet,  who  should  have 
been  true  enough  to  his  own  philosophy  to  have  laughed  at  such 
a poor,  miserable,  effete  old  foe,  was  up  and  at  him  in  a trice, 
whipping  and  stinging  him  with  verses  and  epigrams  whose 
rancour  still  glows  and  burns. 

Other  skits  and  satires  followed.  And  Voltaire,  with  autho- 
rity on  his  side  for  once — to  say  nothing  of  Madame  de 
Pompadour — hunted  out,  accused,  prosecuted  the  authors  in  a 
vehement  activity  and  enthusiasm.  To  be  sure,  on  one  occasion, 
in  his  zeal  he  had  the  wrong  person  arrested,  and  had  to  pay 
damages  in  a law  court  for  false  imprisonment ; besides  pro- 
mising, after  the  fashion  of  the  time,  never  to  do  anything  so 
naughty  again. 

These  skirmishes  lasted  for  many  months  ; nay,  the  Travenol 
case,  for  wrongful  imprisonment,  went  on  for  two  or  three  years. 
Voltaire  came  out  of  such  affairs  with  neither  success  nor  glory. 
He  was  always  both  too  quick  to  anger,  and  too  quick  to  forgive. 
The  latter  quality  was  as  much  a snare  to  him  as  the  former. 

By  the  August  of  1746  this  energetic  courtier  had  reached 
the  fourth  act  of  a play  written  to  order  for  the  Dauphine,  and 
entitled  ‘ Semiramis.’  The  Dauphine  died  at  that  juncture  ; 
but  its  author  continued  ‘ Semiramis  ’ all  the  same.  He  paid  a 
flying  visit  in  September  to  a very  old  friend,  the  Duchesse  du 
Maine.  In  October  he  and  Madame  du  Chatelet  came  up  to 
Fontainebleau  with  the  Court,  and  stayed  at  Bichelieu’s  house 
there,  which  he  had  lent  them.  Just  as  she  was  about  to  leave 
Versailles,  the  whole  of  Madame’s  servants,  except  Longchamp, 
had  left  her  in  a body.  Now,  as  at  Cirey,  she  was  a mistress  not 


160 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1746-47 


a little  expectant  and  inconsiderate,  and  by  fits  and  starts,  if  not 
habitually,  mean.  The  invaluable  Longchamp  saved  the  present 
situation.  He  was  not  sorry  when,  at  Fontainebleau,  he  was 
allowed  to  renounce  a post  in  which  he  sometimes  appears  to 
have  acted,  literally,  as  the  Marquise’s  lady’s  maid,  for  that  of 
secretary  to  the  quick-tempered  and  kind-hearted  M.  de  Voltaire. 

A new  weapon  was  put  into  Voltaire’s  hands  in  December 
wherewith  to  defend  himself  from  his  enemies,  and,  having  been 
promised  the  post  for  two  years,  he  was  made  Gentleman  of  the 
Chamber  to  Louis  XV.  What  an  honour,  what  a splendid 
honour,  for  the  author  of  the  ‘ Henriade  ’ and  the  4 English 
Letters  ’ — for  the  man  who  had  already  begun  to  inaugurate  a 
new  era  of  thought  in  Europe,  and  who  was  to  make  Voltairism 
such  a power  in  the  world  that  it  would  one  day  shake  Catholicism 
on  her  immemorial  foundations ! What  an  honour — what  a 
noble  honour  ! M.  de  Voltaire  did  not  meet  with  at  all  a warm 
reception  from  his  brother  Gentlemen.  Bah ! the  creature  was 
but  a bourgeois . Where  were  his  pedigree  and  his  letters-patent 
of  nobility  ? In  his  books  ? We  do  not  want  any  literary  hacks 
among  Us ! One  youthful  Gentleman  of  the  Chamber,  noble, 
but  very  uncertain  as  to  his  spelling,  wrote  to  his  uncle  that  the 
appointment  of  4 ce  Voltere  ’ was  a 4 dezoneur  1 to  gentlemen  of 
name  and  arms,  and  the  King  really  should  have  known  better. 
The  naive  youth  consulted  his  4 respequetable  oncle  ’ as  to  whether 
it  would  not  be  best  for  the  Chamber  to  refuse  to  receive  4 this 
Person  named  Arouet.’  But  at  a very  early  date  this  Person 
named  Arouet  showed  himself  more  than  a match  for  the  noble 
young  gentleman  and  all  his  brethren  at  once. 

Talking  of  the  coming  marriage  of  a lord’s  daughter  with  a 
Farmer- General — that  synonym  for  dishonesty  and  extortion — 
one  of  the  Gentlemen  inquired  where  the  pair  would  be  married. 
4 At  the  tax-office,’  suggested  someone.  4 There  is  no  chapel 
there,’  said  another.  4 Pardon  me,  gentlemen,’  said  Voltaire,  who 
hitherto  had  not  spoken  a word,  4 there  is  the  Chapel  of  the 
Impenitent  Thief.’ 

It  may  be  guessed  that  the  Gentlemen  of  the  Chamber  at  least 
learnt  to  respect  a brother  with  such  a killing  tongue. 

He  passed  the  early  months  of  1747  busy  with  his  Travenol 
lawsuit,  taking  patent  pills  which  he  was  always  warmly  recorm 


Mt.  52—53]  THE  ACADEMY,  AND  A VISIT 


161 


mending  to  Frederick,  and  ‘ making  his  court  ’ to  Madame  de 
Pompadour.  On  July  2 he  was  congratulating  the  Minister  of 
War  on  the  French  victory  of  Lawfeld ; which  he  afterwards 
celebrated  in  an  epistle,  not  at  all  equal  to  his  ‘ Fontenoy.’ 

He  had  now  reached  the  climax  of  his  favour.  The  Historio- 
grapher of  France,  the  Gentleman  of  the  Chamber,  and  the 
favourite  of  the  mistress,  may  well  have  seemed  a fixture  at  Court. 

He  was  not  sorry  to  escape  from  it  on  August  14  for  a few 
days’  visit  to  the  Duchesse  du  Maine,  now  at  Anet.  Voltaire 
must  have  altered  greatly  since  he  was  first  her  guest  as  a 
promising  boy  of  twenty-one,  two-and-thirty  years  ago.  The 
promise  had  become  fulfilment.  Once,  he  had  been  honoured  in 
being  the  Duchess’s  visitor  ; now,  she  was  honoured  in  being  his 
hostess.  She  allowed  him  to  bring  Madame  du  Chatelet  with 
him,  because  he  would  by  no  means  have  been  allowed  to  come 
without  her.  The  Duchess  was  still  the  ‘sublime  personage’ 
Voltaire  remembered.  With  her  haughty  and  imperious  temper, 
her  brilliant  grace  and  wit,  her  stately  courtesy,  and  her  magnifi- 
cent condescension,  she  was  the  living  type  of  those  women  who 
went  later  to  the  guillotine,  scornful  to  the  last  of  the  canaille  that 
brought  them  there — the  women  who  lived  so  ill,  and  died  so 
well.  A little  deformed  was  the  great  Duchess  : very  small ; 
fair-haired  ; loving  amusement  and  hating  boredom  above  every- 
thing in  this  world  and  the  world  to  come ; seventy  years  old,  but 
as  appreciative  of  a Voltaire  as  she  had  been  at  forty. 

With  her  was  Madame  de  Staal,  formerly  Mademoiselle  de 
Launay,  whom  Voltaire  already  knew  ; half  maid,  half  companion, 
very  observant  and  with  a brilliant,  satirical  pen,  much  in  use  for 
writing  famous  Memoirs  and  recounting  the  gossip  of  the  Maine 
court  to  Madame  du  Deffand  in  Paris. 

There  were  various  other  visitors.  The  Duchess  liked  society, 
she  said,  because  everybody  had  to  listen  to  her  and  she  had  to 
listen  to  nobody. 

Play-acting  was  much  in  vogue.  Cleverness  was  de  rigueur. 
To  be  moral  was  unnecessary — but  to  be  a bore,  that  was  not  to 
be  dreamt  of.  It  was  upon  this  court  that  the  erratic  Emilie, 
with  her  lover  and  a great  quantity  of  luggage  in  her  train, 
descended  very  late  on  the  evening  of  the  day  before  she  was 
expected. 

M 


162 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1747 


There  was  a fine  fuss,  according  to  the  acid,  elderly  de  Staal. 
The  pair  wanted  supper.  One  of  the  visitors  had  to  give  up  his 
bed  to  Madame  du  Chatelet,  who  complained  of  it  the  next 
morning.  She  tried  two  other  rooms,  and  grumbled  at  them. 
She  was  determined,  as  usual,  to  carry  on  her  studies,  and  required 
a bedroom  where  she  could  have  silence,  not  so  much  by  night, 
as  by  day.  She  shut  herself  up  there  and  worked  hard  at  Newton, 
joining  the  other  visitors  only  in  the  evenings.  Sublimely  in- 
different to  social  obligations  was  the  Marquise.  The  stupid  rules 
which  govern  guests  in  most  polite  societies  she  ignored  entirely. 
She  preferred  work  to  tittle-tattling  with  the  other  women ; so 
she  worked.  There  were  not  enough  tables  in  her  room  for  her 
papers,  her  jewels,  and  her  pompons ; so  she  made  a foraging 
expedition  round  the  house  and  appropriated  six  or  seven  for  her 
use.  Anyone  with  a taste  for  occupation,  and  condemned  to 
polite  idleness,  will  understand  and  sympathise  with  Madame  du 
Chatelet.  It  is  also  easy  to  understand  that  the  old  Duchess, 
who  invited  her  guests  solely  to  amuse  herself,  was  offended. 
And  that  Voltaire,  whose  own  passion  for  work  kept  him  shut 
up  alone  almost  as  much  as  Emilie,  felt  it  necessary  to  atone 
for  their  conduct  by  writing  the  Duchess  lovely,  gallant  verses, 
and  when  he  did  appear,  by  being  delightfully  amusing  and 
agreeable. 

In  a few  days  the  company  began  to  rehearse  Voltaire’s  farce 
* Boursouffle,’  which  had  formed  the  amusement  of  a Cirey  evening 
nine  years  before.  Madame  du  Chatelet  took  a part  and  would 
not  submit,  wrote  the  acrimonious  de  Staal,  to  the  simplicity  of 
costume  it  demanded,  but  persisted  in  dressing  it  like  a Court 
lady. 

She  and  Voltaire  had  a passage  of  arms  on  the  point,  de  Staal 
added.  ‘ But  she  is  the  sovereign,  and  he  the  slave  ; ’ and  of 
course  the  slave  had  to  submit.  It  is  noticeable  here,  again,  that 
it  was  the  other  women  who  abused  Emilie,  and  not  Emilie  the 
other  women.  Perhaps  her  eternal  Newton,  at  which  they 
sneered,  kept  her  from  the  meanness  and  the  backbiting  which 
disfigured  their  own  conduct.  Let  her  sublime  inconsideration 
for  other  people’s  feelings  and  her  childish  fondness  for  fine 
clothes  be  granted.  Those  failings  were  common  to  most  of  the 
great  ladies  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and,  no  doubt,  to  Emilie’s 


Mt.  53]  THE  ACADEMY,  AND  A VISIT  i68 

detractors  among  them.  Her  passion  for  work  and  her  noble 
intellectual  endowments  were  her  own  alone. 

, , Boursouffle  ’ was  an  immense  success.  Voltaire  and  Madame 
took  leave  of  the  Duchess  on  August  25,  1747,  the  morning  Ifter 

1 performance’  and  in  their  usual  confusion  of  bandboxes 
chiffons,  and  papers,  left  ‘ Boursouffle  ’ behind  them.  Madame  de 
btaal  whose  temper  was  perhaps  rendered  uncertain  by  her  post 
of  polite  maid-of-all-work  to  all  the  Duchess’s  guest^  reeefved 
agonised  letters  from  Voltaire  imploring  her  to  send  the  farce  by  a 

:“Vhe  rSfci f0r  fear  shouId  be  c°Pied.  and  to  keep 

were  bit  ^ ^ He  a»d  Madame 

were  back  at  Court  agam-with  the  sun  of  kingly  favour  shining 

ol  llrr  t-eeme taS  bnghtIy  as  ever-  Six  weeks  passed  with8 

out  any  distinguishing  events.  On  October  14,  1747,  the  Court 
was  at  Fontainebleau,  and  Voltaire  and  Madame  du  Chatelet,  its 
constant  attendants,  still  staying  at  the  house  of  the  Duke  of 
Kichelieu  m the  same  place. 


164 


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[1747 


CHAPTER  XVII 

COUET  DISFAVOUE,  AND  HIDING  AT  SCEAUX 

It  was  one  of  the  very  doubtful  privileges  of  Madame  du  Chatelet’s 
rank  that  she  was  permitted  to  play  cards  at  the  Queen's  table. 
lEmilie  had  never  done  anything  in  moderation  in  her  life.  She 
not  only  loved,  worked,  and  dressed  to  excess,  but  she  gambled  to 
excess  also.  High  play  was  in  the  air  of  that  eighteenth  century. 
In  England,  as  well  as  in  France,  men  lost  an  estate  or  a fortune 
in  an  evening,  and  women  staked  the  diamonds  on  their  breast 
and  the  dowries  of  their  children. 

The  thrifty  Voltaire  regarded  the  dangerous  craze  in  Madame 
du  Chatelet  with  not  a little  apprehension.  He  had  known 
poverty  not  by  name,  but  in  person  ; and  had  no  desire  to  renew 
the  acquaintance. 

One  night  at  Fontainebleau,  probably  at  the  end  of  October 
1747,  but  the  actual  date  is  not  quite  clear,  lilmilie  lost  four 
hundred  louis.  She  must  have  exerted  all  her  power  over  the 
man  who  had  ceased  to  love  her,  but  not  to  fear  her  or  to  be 
faithful  to  her,  to  make  him  lend  her  two  hundred  more.  She 
played  again  the  next  evening,  and  lost  those.  One  can  fancy 
the  scene — the  crowded  ante-chamber  of  royalty  ; the  flushed  and 
excited  players  ; lights,  laughter,  and  talk ; Emilie,  desperate  and 
breathless,  forgetting  alike  her  fine  clothes  which  were  the  sign 
she  was  but  as  other  women,  and  her  cool  reason  which  set  her 
far  above  them — and  at  her  side,  Voltaire,  urging  her  in  fervent 
English  whispers  to  come  away,  that  the  game  was  played,  and 
the  loss  must  be  accepted  with  a shrug  of  the  shoulders  and  as 
good  a grace  and  philosophy  as  one  could  muster. 

A fly  buzzing  at  her  ear  could  not  have  moved  her  less.  The 
intoxication  of  play  was  upon  her.  She  sent  out  and  raised  from 
her  man  of  business  and  a friend,  Mademoiselle  du  Thil,  three 


Mi.  53] 


COURT  DISFAVOUR 


165 


hundred  and  eighty  louis  more.  She  lost  them.  Luck  had  been 
against  her.  It  must  turn  now  ! She  played  on  and  on.  At 
last  she  owed  eighty-four  thousand  francs.  The  quick  Voltaire 
at  her  elbow,  robbed  of  all  prudence  and  discretion  (to  be  sure,  he 
never  had  much  of  either),  bent  over  her  desperately  at  last  and 
said  in  an  agitated  whisper  in  English  : ‘ Don’t  you  see  you  are 
playing  with  cheats  ? ’ The  words  were  hardly  out  of  his  mouth 
before  he  realised  that  they  had  been  overheard  and  understood  : 
or  before  one  of  the  quickest  intelligences  that  ever  man  had,  had 
decided  on  action.  Madame  du  Chatelet,  sobered  suddenly,  was 
herself  far  too  clever  not  to  see  the  danger  of  the  situation.  The 
pair  rose  at  once  and  left  the  palace.  The  room  was  full  of  their 
enemies  : noble  Gentlemen-in-Ordinary  jealous  of  a brother  whose 
pedigree  was  his  brain  and  who  had  no  birthright  but  genius ; 
and  women  angry  with  Emilie  for  her  absurd  airs  of  youth,  and 
her  passion  for  learning  which  must  be  affected  in  her , because  it 
certainly  would  be  affected  in  us  ! 

Would  Madame  de  Pompadour’s  patronage  save  her  brilliant 
protege  ? By  no  means.  The  play  was  at  the  Queen’s  table  ; 
and  the  silent  Queen  had  no  reason  to  love  the  Pompadour’s 
friends.  Historiographer  of  France  and  Member  of  the  French 
Academy — even  that  would  not  save  a Voltaire,  with  a Voltaire’s 
record  behind  him,  from  the  consequences  of  such  an  utterance 
as  this. 

The  two  returned  post-haste  to  Richelieu’s  house  where  they 
had  their  quarters.  It  was  half-past  one  in  the  morning.  They 
waited  for  nothing.  The  horses  were  put  to  at  once.  Long- 
champ  was  sent  in  search  of  their  servants  who  were  lodging  at 
different  houses  in  the  place.  Emilie’s  femme  de  chambre  had 
only  time  to  throw  together  a few  packages  of  chiffons.  She, 
Voltaire,  and  Emilie  got  into  the  carriage  just  as  the  October 
day  was  breaking.  Longchamp  was  left  behind  to  pack.  The 
carriage  was  driven  towards  Paris,  and  the  desperate  pair  within 
hastily  sketched  in  the  details  of  their  scheme  of  action.  A 
wheel  of  the  carriage  broke  when  they  were  near  Essore,  and  the 
wheelwright,  who  had  no  mind  to  be  cheated  of  his  dues  even  by 
fine  folk  in  gala  attire,  declined  to  let  the  carriage  proceed  till  his 
bill  was  paid.  Neither  Voltaire  nor  Emilie  had  a single  sou.  A 
lettre  de  cachet  and  the  Bastille  loomed  much  too  close  for  delays 


166 


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[1747 


to  be  endurable.  Luckily,  an  old  acquaintance  of  the  du 
Chatelets,  coming  by  post-chaise  from  Paris,  recognised  Madame 
and  paid  the  wheelwright.  They  drove  on.  At  a little  village 
near  Paris,  Voltaire  alighted.  Madame  proceeded  to  the  capital. 
It  had  been  arranged  that  there  she  should  make  arrangement  for 
the  payment  of  her  gambling  debts,  and  if  possible  smooth  the 
way  for  Voltaire’s  return.  She  was  used  to  that  office. 

From  a wayside  inn  Voltaire  wrote  to  the  Duchesse  du  Maine, 
now  hard  by  at  Sceaux  ; and  sent  the  letter  by  messenger.  He 
had  asked  his  old  friend  for  hiding,  shelter,  refuge,  till  the  storm 
blew  over.  She  responded,  telling  him  to  come  that  night  to  the 
chateau,  where  one  Duplessis,  known  to  Voltaire,  would  meet  him 
and  conduct  him  to  the  rooms  she  was  keeping  for  him.  He  did 
as  she  said.  He  entered  the  house  unknown  to  any  save  Duplessis 
and  the  Duchess. 

For  not  less  than  a month  he  lived  in  those  rooms  on  the 
second  floor,  with  the  shutters  barred  night  and  day.  Longchamp 
joined  him  there,  bringing  luggage,  books,  and  papers.  All  day 
long  the  master  wrote  and  the  valet  copied.  Voltaire  never  slept 
more  than  five  or  six  hours  ; but  wrote,  wrote,  wrote  by  that 
eternal  candle-light.  At  two  o’clock  every  night,  when  the  rest 
of  the  house  was  asleep,  he  came  softly  downstairs  into  the 
Duchess’s  bedroom,  where  the  little,  great  lady  was  already  in  bed 
and  where,  propped  on  pillows,  she  royally  waited  to  be  amused 
by  her  guest.  She  was  never  disappointed.  A servant,  the  only 
one  in  her  confidence,  brought  M.  de  Voltaire  a little  supper  which 
he  ate  on  a little  table  between  his  hostess’s  bed  and  the  wall. 
The  valet  left  the  room.  During  the  meal  the  old  Duchess  told 
her  visitor  the  most  delightful  wicked  stories  of  the  Court  of 
Louis  XIV. — from  her  own  experience.  And  then,  M.  de  Voltaire 
produced  a manuscript  and  read  to  the  Duchess  the  charming 
result  of  his  imprisonment — those  miniature  masterpieces  of 
romance,  ‘ Zadig,’  ‘ Scarmentado,’  ‘ Micromegas,’  and  ‘Baboue.’ 

Only  children  of  that  astonishing  eighteenth  century  could 
have  enacted  such  a scene  entirely  without  awkwardness,  self- 
consciousness,  or  exaggeration.  It  was  worth  days  of  labour  and 
darkness  to  find  a listener  as  acute,  as  sympathetic  and  intelligent 
as  this  little  old  woman  who  had  lived  so  fully  and  knew  human 
nature  to  the  core. 


Mt.  53] 


HIDING  AT  SCEAUX 


167 


While  this  lean  M.  de  Voltaire  with  his  startlingly  brilliant 
eyes,  and  the  sardonic  mouth  and  drooping  hook-nose  more  nearly 
meeting  year  by  year — his  conversation  alone  could  turn  night 
into  day,  and  make  one  forget  that  such  things  as  fatigue,  ennui, 
sleep,  are  part  of  man's  portion.  Out  of  gratitude  for  her  good- 
ness— gratitude  was  never  a virtue  he  lacked — he  was  wittier  now 
than  ever.  Gratitude  guided  his  pen  as  well  as  his  speech,  and 
made  his  stories  the  most  easy,  graceful,  and  delightful  in  the 
world. 

Voltaire  had  not  been  a romancer  hitherto.  He  did  not  find 
it  in  him  to  invent  plots  now.  ‘ Zadig  ' is  founded  on  a story  by 
English  Thomas  Parnell ; and  ‘ Microm6gas  ’ pretty  openly  taken 
from  Cyrano  de  Bergerac's  ‘ Journey  to  the  Moon.'  But  as  the 
‘ amazing  genius  ’ of  Shakespeare  took  the  stillborn  children  of 
lesser  men’s  brains  and  breathed  on  them  the  breath  of  life,  so 
did  Voltaire.  Everything  that  makes  a story  immortal  is  his 
own  in  those  matchless  contes.  Charm,  wit,  delicacy,  an  exquisite 
lightness  of  touch,  the  finest  taste  in  satire,  humour,  variety, 
epigram,  gaiety — with  that  ever-present  undercurrent  of  biting 
meaning — almost  all  the  Voltairian  gifts  are  here.  Every  story 
is  a pungent  satire  on  the  King,  Court,  regime , or  religion  of  that 
evil  day.  The  characters  are  very  palpably  drawn  from  life. 
In  * Zadig  ’ there  is  a certain  Yebor  who  could  by  no  possibility 
be  anyone  else  than  Boyer,  the  Ane  of  Mirepoix. 

The  graceless  old  Duchess,  sitting  up  in  bed,  thoroughly 
enjoyed  hearing  her  order  castigated.  She  laughed  loud  and  long 
to  see  how  this  Voltaire  always  had  his  whip  on  the  raw. 

No  wonder  she  was  eager  for  the  tales  to  be  given  to  the 
larger  public  of  her  court.  The  imprisonment  was  becoming 
wearisome.  The  unlucky  Longchamp  was  ennuied  to  death. 
Voltaire's  health  began  to  suffer  for  want  of  light  and  fresh  air. 
The  secret  of  his  whereabouts  had  been  kept  so  well,  that  his 
enemies  at  Court  supposed  him  to  be  on  the  road  to  Frederick 
and  Berlin. 

Everybody  was  glad  when  one  fine  day,  probably  about  the 
end  of  November,  Madame  du  Chatelet  appeared  with  the  news 
that  the  storm  had  blown  over,  that  the  unlucky  utterance  was 
more  or  less  forgotten,  and  the  gambling  debts  settled — somehow. 
The  autocratic  little  Duchess  was  not  going  to  part  with  her 


168 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1747 


Voltaire  now  she  might  enjoy  him  openly.  He  and  Madame  dn 
Chatelet  joined  her  throng  of  gay  satellites.  There  were  comedies, 
operas,  and  balls.  Voltaire,  Emilie,  and  Madame  de  Staal  all 
took  parts  in  his  play  of  ‘ The  Prude/  imitated  from  Wycherley’s 
‘Plain  Dealer,’  and  now  played  for  the  first  time — December  15, 
1747.  They  acted  ‘Isse’  by  La  Motte,  ‘Zelindor’  by  Moncrif, 
and  ‘Les  Originaux/  a comedy  by  Voltaire,  first  performed  at 
Cirey.  Emilie  took  the  part  of  Isse ; was  Fanchon  in  the 
‘ Originaux,’  and  Zirphe  in  the  opera  of  ‘ Zelindor.’  If  she  was 
one-and-forty  years  old  and  would  dress  her  parts,  not  to  suit 
them,  but  her  own  love  of  finery,  it  must  be  confessed  that  she 
was  matchlessly  accomplished  and  versatile. 

Voltaire,  after  the  manner  of  the  days  when  he  was  lover  indeed, 
improvised  gay  verses  of  compliment  to  her.  ‘Madame  du 
Chatelet,’  he  wrote  to  a friend,  ‘ sang  Zirphe  correctly  and  acted 
with  nobility  and  grace : a thousand  diamonds  were  her  least 
ornament.’ 

Besides  play-acting  there  was  an  orchestra  of  marquises  and 
viscounts.  Dancers  from  the  Opera  amused  the  pleasure-loving 
little  court.  A delightful  girl  of  thirteen  carried  that  art  to  its 
highest  perfection  and  charmed  everyone  with  her  grace  and 
talent.  And,  in  the  bad  quarter  of  an  hour  before  dinner,  Voltaire 
read  the  contes  composed  for  the  Duchess,  to  the  Duchess’s  guests 
gathered  together  in  the  great  salon. 

The  visit  came  to  an  end  about  the  middle  of  December,  when 
Voltaire  had  been  at  Sceaux  about  two  months.  Once  more  in 
Paris,  he  busied  himself  with  a very  pretty  little  ruse , by  which 
he  evaded  the  piracy  of  publishers  and  had  two  hundred  private 
copies  of  ‘ Zadig  ’ printed  to  give  to  the  Duchess  and  her  friends, 
before  the  rest  of  the  world  had  read  it. 

Then  came  the  pleasing  news  that  on  December  80  ‘The 
Prodigal  Son  ’ had  been  played  in  the  private  apartments  before 
the  King  by  a distinguished  company  of  amateurs  ; and  that  his 
Majesty  had  deigned  to  be  amused.  Amateur  theatricals  had  a 
vogue  only  second  to  gaming  in  eighteenth-century  France.  To 
play  the  smallest  parts  in  the  feeblest  piece  in  the  King’s  presence, 
men  and  women  made  incredible  sacrifices  of  fortune,  of  honour, 
and  of  truth.  Madame  de  Pompadour’s  femme  de  chambre 
obtained  a commission  in  the  army  for  one  of  her  friends  by 


Mt.  53] 


HIDING  AT  SCEAUX 


169 


procuring,  for  a duke,  the  very  minor  role  of  a policeman,  who 
had  only  two  lines  in  his  part,  in  6 Tartuffe.’  The  clever  Pompa- 
dour herself  was  an  actress  of  no  mean  ability.  She  took  a part 
in  the  1 Prodigal.’  Voltaire  had  not  been  behindhand  in  encourag- 
ing her  histrionic  tastes.  He  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
present  at  this  performance  of  his  comedy.  When  a play  had 
already  been  performed  in  public  (and  ‘ The  Prodigal  Son,’  it 
will  be  remembered,  was  played,  anonymously,  in  October  1736), 
it  was  not  etiquette  to  invite  its  author  to  witness  its  debut  before 
royalty.  But  it  pleased  his  bored  Majesty  so  much  that,  on  the 
strength  of  it,  Madame  de  Pompadour  obtained  for  her  brilliant 
Voltaire  the  delightful  right  and  privilege  of  being  henceforth 
always  a spectator  at  the  plays  acted  in  the  private  apartments. 
And  this  unlucky  Voltaire,  in  his  enthusiasm  and  gratitude,  must 
needs  look  among  his  papers  and  discover  a poem,  which,  with  a 
little  artful  alteration,  will  express  his  thanks  to  the  mistress. 

Nothing  would  ever  have  made  Voltaire  cautious.  Audacity 
was  in  his  nature,  and  there  was  no  preventing  it  oozing  out,  like 
Bob  Acres’  courage,  at  the  tips  of  his  fingers  whenever  he  got  a 
pen  in  his  hand.  To  be  sure,  if  he  had  been  circumspect  he 
could  not  have  been  half  so  witty.  If  wit  is  not  spontaneous,  it 
is  rarely  wit  at  all.  And  this  verse  really  would  not  have  done 
him  the  slightest  harm,  if  the  favourite  had  but  kept  it  to  herself. 

Every  grace  and  charm  and  art, 

Pompadour,  in  you  is  found. 

And  it  is  alike  your  part 

To  be  the  treasure  of  one  heart 
And  a Court’s  delight. 

So  much  blest,  then,  live  for  aye 
Lovely  years  with  pleasure  crown’d. 

The  King  brings  peace  with  him.  Oh  may 

Your  foes  be  nothing : and  alway 
You  both  your  conquests  keep  ! 

But,  after  all,  though  she  was  an  astute,  cool-blooded  Pompadour, 
she  was  a woman  too  and  loved  a compliment;  and  that  her 
entourage  should  be  aware  she  received  such  beautiful  ones  as 
that. 

It  soon  reached  the  ears  of  poor  Marie  Leczinska,  patient  and 


170 


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[1748 


dignified  in  the  dreary  and  respectable  seclusion  of  her  apart- 
ments. The  days  were  long  gone  when,  a bride  of  one-and- 
twenty,  she  had  called  Voltaire  ‘my  poor  Voltaire  ’ and  pensioned 
him  from  her  own  purse.  The  ugly  daughters,  Mesdames,  too, 
had  still  some  influence  over  their  royal  father,  the  King,  and 
were  not  slow  to  use  it. 

Old  Roy  took  occasion  to  sententiously  point  out  in  a dreary 
poem  how  abominable  it  was  to  allude  to  royal — mistakes  : and 
how  the  loves  of  gods  and  kings  were  never  meant  for  the 
comment  of  the  vulgar.  The  unlucky  Voltaire  was  further 
suspected  at  the  moment  of  having  been  the  author  of  some  lines 
to  the  Dauphine,  whose  gay  philosophy  offended  the  King.  He 
denied  the  authorship,  of  course,  in  to  to.  But  that  was  very 
little  use.  It  was  whispered  that  Mesdames,  the  daughters,  so 
worked  upon  Louis  that  he  signed  a decree  of  banishment  for 
Voltaire,  without  even  consulting  Madame  de  Pompadour.  That 
would  seem  to  have  been  an  addition  to  make  a good  story 
better.  There  was  most  likely  no  edict  of  banishment  on  paper. 
Voltaire  himself  denied  that  there  was  ever  any  idea  of  such  a 
thing.  But  on  January  13,  1748,  coming  gaily  to  Versailles  and 
not  in  the  least  anticipating  any  evil  effect  from  the  charming 
audacity  of  his  verses,  he  found  the  Court  too  hot  to  hold  him. 
He  dined  in  Paris  that  night  at  a coffee-house,  with  a few  other 
literary  men.  He  arrived  rather  late.  He  had  come  straight 
from  Versailles,  and  alone  of  the  company  knew  what  had 
occurred  there.  He  made  his  dinner,  after  his  frugal  fashion, 
off  seven  or  eight  cups  of  black  coffee  and  a couple  of  rolls,  and 
was  very  talkative  and  amusing.  The  conversation  turned  on 
the  newly  imposed  tax  on  playing-cards,  and  on  luxury.  When 
the  dinner  was  over  other  visitors  at  the  coffee-house  gathered 
round  him  and  ‘ plied  him  with  questions/ 

He  was  not  exiled.  But  he  had  committed  an  offence  which 
made  it  expedient  to  Go.  He  knew  the  Pompadour  much  too 
well  to  suppose  she  would  put  her  position  in  jeopardy  by  trying 
to  save  a friend,  even  if  he  were  a Voltaire.  ‘ Circumspection  is 
all  very  well,’  he  had  once  written  to  d’Argenson,  ‘but  it  is  a 
melancholy  thing  in  poetry  : to  be  reasonable  and  cold  is  almost 
the  same  thing.’  For  his  part,  he  would  rather  write  even  com- 
pliments and  madrigals  as  he  chose,  and  be  banished  for  them, 


MARIE  LECZINSKA. 

From  the  Picture  by  Carle  Van  Loo  in  the  Louvre. 


JEt.  54] 


HIDING  AT  SCEAUX 


171 


than  remain  at  Court,  tongue-tied  and  careful.  If  the  Historio- 
graphership  and  the  Academy  and  the  solemn  joy  of  signing 
oneself  Gentleman-in- Ordinary  to  the  King  did  not  give  one 
freedom,  they  were  useless.  Neither  Voltaire  nor  Emilie  had 
seen  Cirey  for  many  months.  On  the  whole,  it  was  best  to  go. 
They  left  Paris  in  the  deep  midwinter  at  nine  o'clock  on  a 
January  evening,  1748,  with  the  snow  thick  on  the  ground  and 
a temperature  many  degrees  below  freezing-point. 


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[1748 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  MARQUIS  DE  SAINT-LAMBERT 

One  of  Madame  du  Chatelet’s  idiosyncrasies  was  to  travel  only 
by  night ; and  another,  to  overload  the  travelling  carriage  with 
luggage.  She  insisted  on  having  her  way  in  both  particulars  this 
time.  It  has  been  aptly  said  of  Voltaire  that  he  was  at  once 
patient  and  hasty.  He  certainly  must  have  been  patient  to  take 
the  road  with  a woman  whose  packages  frequently  numbered  a 
hundred  and  who  could  never  travel  without  her  lady’s  maid. 
That  he  usually  lost  his  temper  on  such  journeys,  is  simply  to 
say  that  he  was  human. 

On  the  present  occasion,  as  they  were  nearing  Nangis,  the 
hind  spring  of  the  carriage  broke,  and  the  overladen  vehicle  fell 
over  on  the  side  of  Voltaire.  Madame  du  Chatelet,  large  and 
bony,  the  femme  de  chambre  (whose  weight  and  figure  history 
does  not  record),  and  a vast  quantity  of  bandboxes  and  parcels, 
came  tumbling  on  the  top  of  him.  He  relieved  his  feelings  by 
uttering  ‘ piercing  shrieks.’  Two  footmen,  by  getting  on  the  roof 
of  the  overturned  carriage  and  dragging  their  mistress,  the  lady’s 
maid,  and  the  bandboxes  up  through  the  doors  ‘ as  from  a well,’ 
at  last  released  M.  de  Voltaire  in  the  same  manner.  It  was 
bitterly  cold  and  a brilliant  starlight  night.  The  two  footmen, 
aided  by  the  postillions,  tried  to  set  the  carriage  straight  again, 
and  failed.  One  of  the  postillions  rode  on  into  the  next  village 
for  further  assistance.  And  Voltaire  and  Emilie  sat  by  the  road- 
side on  the  carriage  cushions,  and  would  have  been  ‘ perfectly 
happy  ’ shiveringly  studying  astronomy,  if  they  had  only  had  a 
telescope.  They  were  philosophers,  after  all. 

The  carriage  was  mended  at  last.  But  it  had  not  gone  fifty 
paces  before  it  broke  down  again.  The  workmen,  who  considered 
Madame  had  underpaid  them,  had  to  be  brought  back  by  force — 


Mt.  54]  THE  MARQUIS  DE  SAINT-LAMBERT 


173 


and  promises.  At  last  it  was  able  to  proceed  at  a walking  pace 
the  nine  miles  to  the  Chateau  of  Chapelle,  where  the  travellers 
halted.  They  reached  Cirey  about  the  middle  of  January  1748 
without  further  adventure. 

The  month  they  spent  there  was  a gay  one.  Neither  was 
anxious  for  too  many  tete-d-tetes . The  honeymoon  had  set  for 
ever.  When  they  were  alone,  each  wrote  all  day  ; in  the  evenings 
they  read  aloud  together  or  played  trictrac.  Emilie  had  an 
aggravating  habit  of  keeping  her  Voltaire  waiting  till  supper  was 
cold  while  she  finished  ‘ a little  calculation.’  That  her  Voltaire, 
himself  orderly  and  punctual,  was  extremely  vif  at  the  delay  need 
not  be  doubted.  Madame  du  Deffand  had  once  said  that  he 
followed  Emilie  like  a faithful  dog  with  the  collar  round  his  neck. 
Well,  the  dog  was  faithful  still.  But  the  collar  irked  and  worried 
him ; and  there  were  times  when  he  snapped  at  the  hand  that 
had  put  it  there. 

Madame  de  Champbonin  reappeared  on  the  scene  very  soon, 
with  a hoydenish  twelve-year-old  niece  in  her  train.  She  had 
been  very  warmly  invited — if  only  to  finish  that  solitude  a deux. 
The  whole  neighbourhood  received  invitations  presently  to  act  in, 
or  to  witness,  theatricals.  Emilie  wrote  charades  for  the  occasion. 
She  played  comic  parts  as  well  as  any  other.  Sometimes  the 
servants  were  pressed  into  the  cast  and  acted  too.  The  bonhomme 
would  seem  to  have  been  conveniently  absent,  as  usual.  Voltaire 
doubtless  enjoyed  the  freedom  of  private  life  after  the  slavish 
etiquette  of  the  Court.  He  was  certainly  able  to  enjoy  theatricals 
to  his  last  breath. 

About  the  middle  of  February  he  and  Madame  went  to  visit 
another  Court,  at  Luneville,  where  the  etiquette  was  not  slavish 
at  all,  and  where  a king  was  a great  deal  more  anxious  to  have 
them  than  ever  dull  Louis  had  been. 

Stanislas,  once  King  of  Poland,  had  been  not  a little  thankful 
to  exchange  that  quarrelsome  and  much  quarrelled  over  kingdom 
for  the  peaceful  little  duchy  of  Lorraine,  the  tranquil  enjoyment 
of  a pipe  six  feet  long,  and  the  dolce  far  niente  of  his  lazy  and 
easy-going  mistress,  Madame  de  Boufflers.  He  still  had  the  title 
of  King.  He  still  had  a position — he  was  the  father  of  Marie 
Leczinska.  His  miniature  Court  had  all  the  pleasures  and 
intrigues  of  a greater,  with  no  weary  formalism.  Stanislas  had 


174 


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[1748 


his  Jesuit,  Menou,  to  rule  him  just  as  other  kings  had  their 
priests  to  rule  them.  The  priest  fought  the  mistress  for  the 
command  of  the  royal  puppet,  in  the  approved,  courtly  fashion  ; 
and  the  mistress  fought  the  priest,  when  she  was  not  too  lazy. 

The  little  Court  was  further  ornamented  by  a child  dwarf, 
who  could  sleep  in  a sabot , and  a most  beautiful  young  guards- 
man, six  feet  high. 

Following  the  example  of  Frederick,  Stanislas  was  a feeble 
author  himself  and  a very  enthusiastic  admirer  of  the  literary 
Voltaire.  The  literary  Voltaire  was  not  sorry  to  show  the 
offended  Court  of  France  that  he  stood  well  with  its  offended 
Queen’s  royal  father.  So  the  visitors  and  the  visited  were 
gratified  alike. 

The  visit  was  a gay  one.  Msse  ’ was  played  ; and  ‘ Merope,’ 
when  everyone  sobbed  just  as  they  had  done  in  Paris.  In  the 
evenings  they  played  lansquenet  or  talked.  It  was  an  agreeable, 
idle  life.  Voltaire,  ailing  as  usual,  was  humoured  and  made  much 
of  by  the  King.  Emilie  overwhelmed  the  inert  and  voluptuous 
Madame  de  Boufflers  with  her  energetic  friendship.  And  then — 

The  Marquis  de  Saint-Lambert  is  one  of  the  most  picturesque 
figures  of  his  century.  Poet  and  soldier,  handsome,  haughty  and 
cold,  with  just  enough  disdain  in  his  perfect  manner  to  make 
every  woman  adore  him  and  long  to  thaw  that  flawless  ice — he 
had  almost  every  quality  which  makes  riches  superfluous.  He 
was,  in  fact,  nothing  but  the  officer  of  a company  of  Lorraine 
guards.  He  was  much  in  Luneville  because  he  had,  said  the 
world,  a fancy  for  his  King’s  mistress,  Madame  de  Boufflers.  His 
own  age  accounted  him  celebrated  because  he  wrote  the  loveliest 
drawing-room  verses  and  was  the  author  of  a poem  called  1 The 
Seasons  ’ — much  duller  than  Thomson’s.  The  present  age  only 
knows  him  as  the  man  who  robbed  Rousseau  of  Madame 
d’Houdetot  and  Voltaire  of  Madame  du  Chatelet. 

In  1788,  when  Madame  de  Graffigny,  who  was  a friend  of  his, 
was  at  Cirey,  she  had  corresponded  with  him.  He  had  much 
wished  to  be  asked  to  stay  there.  Since  he  knew  how  ‘ to  read 
and  rest  in  his  own  room  during  the  day  ’ and  would  only  expect 
to  be  amused  in  the  evenings,  Madame  du  Chatelet  desired  to 
have  him  for  a visitor.  But  the  plan,  probably  owing  to  the 
rupture  with  Madame  de  Graffigny,  had  never  been  carried  out. 


Mt.  54]  THE  MARQUIS  DE  SAINT-LAMBERT 


175 


Madame  du  Chatelet  was  now  two-and-forty  years  old,  and, 
on  the  unanimous  testimony  of  all  her  female  friends,  not  at  all 
beautiful.  But  that  inflammable  temperament,  which  years 
before  had  made  her  fling  honour  and  prudence  to  the  winds  and 
give  her  heart  and  life  to  Voltaire,  was  hers  still.  Age  had  not 
quenched  the  fire.  Abstruse  thought  and  long  devotion  to  the 
exact  sciences  had  still  left  her,  on  one  side  of  her  nature, 
passionately  a woman.  Voltaire  had  passed  quickly  and  easily 
from  love  to  friendship — but  not  Emilie.  Her  jealousy  of 
Frederick  the  Great  was  a proof  that  she  loved  her  lover  as  he 
had  long  ceased  to  love  her.  As  early  as  1741,  in  Brussels,  after 
his  return  from  his  second  Prussian  visit,  she  had  bitterly  re- 
proached him  with  no  longer  caring  for  her.  He  had  replied  to 
her  in  verses  of  which  the  following  give  the  keynote. 

If  you  want  me  still  to  love 

Give  me  back  love’s  golden  morn  ; 

To  the  twilight  of  my  days 

Join,  forsooth,  love’s  happy  dawn. 

Even  the  sunrise  touches  night. 

One  hour  is  mine  : and  is  no  more. 

We  pass  : the  race  which  follows  us, 

Another  follows  : all  is  o’er. 

In  the  year  after  he  first  met  her,  on  the  occasion  of 
Richelieu’s  marriage  to  Mademoiselle  de  Guise,  in  April  1734,  he 
had  written 

Love  not  too  much  : and  so  you  may 
Love  alway. 

For  were  it  not  the  better  far  to  be 
Friends  for  eternity 

Than  lovers  for  a day  ? 

He  had  always  been  honest  at  least.  If  he  had  been  still  lover 
indeed,  it  might  yet  never  have  occurred  to  him  that  there  could 
be  cause  for  jealousy  of  Emilie  of  two-and-forty  and  a young 
guardsman  of  one-and-thirty. 

When  did  that  wild  passion  begin  ? Did  it  begin  in  those 
idle,  early  days  of  the  Luneville  visit,  gradually  nourished  by 
propinquity,  that  gay,  easy  life,  those  lovely  society  verses,  and 
the  tantalising  fact  that  Saint-Lambert  was  a little  bit  in  love 


176 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1748 


with  that  stupid,  lazy,  self-indulgent  de  Bouffiers  ? It  would 
have  been  an  irresistible  temptation  to  ^milie’s  cleverness  and 
energy  to  win  away  such  a man  from  such  a woman. 

But  it  seems  more  likely  that  she  had  no  time  for  designs, 
that  she  fell  head  over  ears  in  love  madly,  recklessly,  and  at  once— 
with  that  utter  abandon , all  foolish  and  half  pathetic,  with  which 
an  old  woman  too  often  loves  a young  man.  Was  it  the  hand- 
some face  and  cold  manner  and  heart  that  attracted  her  ? The 
whole  eighteenth  century  found  them  attractive.  Saint-Lambert 
had  so  much,  too,  of  that  particularly  vague  quality  called  taste  ! 
He  liked  being  amused,  though  he  found  it  too  much  trouble  to 
be  amusing  himself.  And  here  was  one  of  the  cleverest  women 
of  her  day,  or  of  any  day,  who  could  not  be  dull  if  she  tried  and 
wanted  nothing  better  than  to  entertain  him.  She  was  an 
invigorating  change  from  the  sleepy  de  Boufflers,  at  any  rate. 
He  was  not  sorry,  too,  to  obtain  the  cachet  which  would  accrue  to 
him  for  having  robbed  a Voltaire. 

But  whether  the  passion  on  both  sides  was  born  full-grown, 
dominant,  and  irresistible,  or  had  slower  roots  in  vanity  and  idle- 
ness, matters  not.  It  was  soon  an  accomplished  fact.  Madame 
du  Chatelet  wrote  her  Saint-Lambert  the  most  mad,  adoring 
letters  on  rose-coloured  or  sky-blue  notepaper  with  an  edge  of 
lace.  She  put  the  letters  in  Madame  de  Boufflers’  harp  in  the 
salon.  And  when  everyone  had  gone  to  bed,  the  young  guards- 
man came  and  found  them  there.  He  replied  of  course.  If  he 
did  not  adore,  he  graciously  submitted  to  be  adored.  ‘ Come  to 
me  as  soon  as  you  are  up,’  wrote  the  deluded  woman.  And  some- 
times, secretly  creeping  round  by  the  thickets  of  the  garden,  she 
would  visit  him . She  hardly  thought  her  conduct  required 
apology.  She  loved  him.  That  was  enough.  Or  if  it  did,  well 
then,  for  years  Voltaire  had  been  but  her  friend  when  he  should 
have  been  her  lover.  ‘ I loved  for  both.’  i I had  reason  to  com- 
plain and  I forgave  all.’  She  had  tried  to  be  satisfied  with 
friendship : but  she  could  not.  She  wrote  thus  to  d’Argental  in 
a letter  not  devoid  of  genuine  feeling  and  even  of  pathos.  She 
had  some  excuse.  But  she  made  the  common  mistake  of  think- 
ing that  an  excuse  and  a justification  are  the  same  thing. 

The  Abb6  Voisenon  has  recorded  how  once  Madame  du 
Chatelet,  after,  it  may  be  guessed,  a quarrel  with  Voltaire,  spoke 


Mr.  54]  THE  MARQUIS  HE  SAINT-LAMBERT 


177 


of  herself  as  entirely  alienated  from  him.  The  Abbe  took  down 
one  of  the  eight  volumes  of  Voltaire’s  manuscript  letters  to  her 
and  read  some  aloud.  All  his  love  letters  contained,  says  the 
Abbe,  more  epigrams  against  religion  than  madrigals  for  his 
mistress.  But  when  the  reader  stopped,  Emilie’s  eyes  were  wet. 
She  was  not  cured  yet.  A few  years  later,  in  1749,  her  priestly 
friend  tried  the  same  experiment.  She  listened  unmoved.  She 
was  cured  indeed  : and  the  doctor  had  been  Saint-Lambert. 

The  Luneville  visit  lasted  from  about  February  1748  until  the 
end  of  April.  Then  Madame  du  Chatelet  left  the  Court:  and 
returned  to  Cirey,  where  she  and  Saint-Lambert  may  have  spent 
a few  blissful,  uninterrupted  days  together.  Voltaire  prolonged 
his  visit  to  Stanislas  a short  time.  By  May  15  he  and  Madame 
du  Chatelet  were  both  once  more  at  Cirey  en  route  for  Paris. 

During  her  stay  at  Luneville  the  energetic  Marquise  had  not 
only  found  a lover,  but  obtained  for  her  bonhomme  the  lucrative 
post  of  the  Grand  Marshal  of  the  Household  to  Stanislas,  and  a 
commission  in  the  army  for  her  son. 

But  her  thoughts  were  not  with  husband,  son,  or  friend  (as 
she  still  called  her  Voltaire),  but  with  M.  de  Saint-Lambert. 
Wherever  she  was  she  wrote  to  him  continually — letters  filled 
with  passion,  abandon , tenderness,  bitterness,  doubt.  He  had 
purposed  taking  a journey  in  Italy,  but  renounced  it  at  her 
pleading.  She  thanked  him  with  the  melancholy  effusion  and 
the  humiliating  gratitude  of  the  woman  who  has  obtained  from 
her  master  a sacrifice  she  knows  to  be  unwilling.  She  and  her 
unsuspecting  Voltaire  came  up  to  Paris.  If  she  spent  her  time 
writing  to  her  lover,  Voltaire  spent  his  in  superintending  the 
rehearsals  of  his  new  tragedy  ‘ Semiramis.’  One  day  his  versatility 
appeared  in  a new  character,  and  he  wrote  a prologue  for  his 
‘ Death  of  Caesar  ’ for  a girls’  school  who  proposed  to  act  it.  It 
is  characteristic  of  the  man  that  he  adapted  himself  to  this  entirely 
new  role  with  the  most  perfect  flexibility  and  thoroughness.  The 
prologue’s  chief  characteristics  are  its  ‘ ease  and  orthodoxy.’  He 
wrote  it  leaning  on  a mantelpiece,  on  the  spur  of  the  moment. 
He  included  a charming  little  letter  to  the  Sister  Superior  and 
even  begged  the  prayers  of  that  good  lady  on  his  behalf  ! 

On  June  28  he  and  Madame  du  Chatelet  left  Paris  for  Com- 
mercy,  another  seat  of  Stanislas,  where  that  King  then  was. 

N 


178 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1748 


Voltaire  was  ill  and  miserable  and  Madame  a more  impossible 
travelling  companion  than  ever.  On  their  route,  at  Chalons-sur- 
Marne,  she  must  needs  engage  in  the  most  vociferous,  fatiguing 
dispute  with  the  landlady  of  an  inn  over  a basin  of  soup. 

Commercy  was  as  gay  as  Luneville.  There  were  the  inevitable 
operas  and  comedies,  and  on  July  14  Providence  kindly  arranged 
a total  eclipse  of  the  sun  to  further  amuse  the  little  Court.  One 
of  its  number  had  astronomised  ever  so  many  years  ago  at  Sceaux 
and  at  Villars  : and  had  not  forgotten  those  times. 

On  August  26  he  returned  to  Paris,  leaving  Madame  du 
Chatelet  behind  him.  She  did  not  complain  of  his  neglect  this 
time.  King  Stanislas  also  came  up  to  Paris  to  stay  for  a few 
days  with  his  daughter,  the  Queen.  Voltaire  arrived  in  the  capital 
on  the  very  day  of  the  production  of  ‘ Semiramis  ’ — probably 
August  29,  1748. 

There  had  long  been  forming  a cabal  against  the  piece,  headed 
by  enemy  Piron  and  joined  by  most  of  the  adherents  of  Jbhat 
dismal  old  playwright  Crebillon,  who  had  himself  written  a clumsy 
‘ Semiramis  7 in  1717.  Well,  conspiracy  for  conspiracy.  What 
weapons  you  use  against  me,  I have  the  right  to  use  against  you. 
That  was  Voltaire’s  theory  now  as  ever.  He  met  cunning  with 
cunning.  He  bought  up  half  the  seats  in  the  house.  He  gave 
them  to  persons  who  could  be  absolutely  relied  upon  to  clap  and 
cry  at  the  right  moments,  and  to  drown  all  hisses  with  applause. 
Theriot  helped  him.  The  d’Argental  husband  and  wife  had  been 
already  active  on  his  behalf.  Voltaire  too  had  boldly  asked  the 
patronage  of  King  Louis  and  Madame  de  Pompadour,  and  the 
King,  in  consideration  of  the  piece  having  been  originally  written 
for  the  late  Dauphine,  agreed  to  pay  the  expenses  of  putting  it  on 
the  stage.  If  the  play  but  once  had  a hearing  Voltaire  believed 
that  no  conspiracy  could  damn  it. 

The  little  scheme  succeeded  fairly  well.  M.  de  Voltaire’s 
friends  wept  and  applauded  to  perfection.  But  the  first  three  acts 
were  received  by  the  audience  as  a whole  with  only  a very  moderate 
warmth.  And  in  the  fourth,  the  play  was  nearly  ruined.  It  was 
then  the  custom  in  France  for  the  spectators  to  sit  and  walk  about 
on  the  stage.  During  this  fourth  act,  at  a scene  at  the  tomb  of 
Ninus,  there  were  so  many  of  them,  that  the  too  enthusiastic 
player  who  took  the  part  of  the  sentinel  and  was  guarding  the 


jEt.  54]  THE  MARQUIS  DE  SAIN T-L AMJBERT 


179 


tomb,  called  out : ‘ Make  way  for  the  ghost,  if  you  please,  gentlemen. 
Make  way  for  the  ghost ! * which  set  the  house  in  a roar.  The 
playwright,  to  be  sure,  had  no  reason  to  find  the  incident  amusing. 
He  complained  to  the  Lieutenant  of  Police,  and  in  future  perform- 
ances of  ‘ Semiramis  ’ the  abuse  was  corrected. 

That  first  night,  then,  was  by  no  means  so  decidedly  successful 
as  its  author  had  hoped. 

On  the  second  night,  August  30,  M.  de  Voltaire,  wanting  to 
hear  what  his  friends  as  well  as  his  enemies  said  of  the  piece 
behind  his  back,  disguised  himself  and  went  to  the  famous  Cafe 
Procope,  opposite  the  Comedie  Fra^aise,  and  largely  frequented 
by  literary  and  theatrical  people.  He  had  been  an  amateur  actor 
to  some  purpose,  and  understood  the  art  of  make-up  as  well  as 
any  professional  on  the  boards.  With  cassock  and  bands,  an  old 
three-cornered  hat,  and  an  immense  full-bottom  unpowdered  wig 
that  showed  hardly  anything  of  his  face  except  the  sharp  end  of 
his  long,  pointed  nose,  he  looked  the  part  of  an  abbe  to  perfection. 
He  put  a breviary  under  his  arm  ; arrived  at  the  cafe  ; possessed 
himself  of  a newspaper ; chose  a dark  corner ; put  on  his  spec- 
tacles, and  read  the  paper  over  a modest  repast  of  a cup  of  tea  and 
a roll.  The  cafe  filled  presently — journalists,  actors,  some  of  the 
partisans  of  Crebillon  and  some  of  Voltaire — all  fresh  from  the 
play  and  all  anxious  to  air  their  views  thereon.  That  sensitive, 
thin-skinned,  long-nosed  abbe  in  the  corner  had  to  exercise  all  his 
self-control  to  keep  himself  from  contradicting  an  enemy  who 
criticised  unjustly,  or  a friend  who  praised  foolishly.  But  he  did 
it.  The  role  pleased  his  sense  of  humour.  And  one  or  two  of 
his  critics  quoted  some  of  his  fine  passages  not  amiss.  He  sat 
there  for  an  hour  and  a half,  keenly  attentive  to  the  conversation. 
The  result  as  a whole  was  not  unsatisfactory.  The  play  would  do. 

It  ran  for  fifteen  nights  in  succession.  When  a month  or  so 
later  a vile  parody  appeared  on  it,  Voltaire,  supported  by  her 
father’s  friendship,  begged  Marie  Leczinska  to  suppress  that 
parody.  But  the  Queen,  remembering  Voltaire  not  as  the  man 
whose  4 Indiscret  ’ and  ‘ Mariamne  ’ had  charmed  her  youth,  but 
as  the  imprudent  friend  of  Madame  de  Pompadour,  coldly  de- 
clined to  interfere.  The  Pompadour  herself  could  do  little.  But 
the  parody  did  not  much  harm  the  original  after  all.  On  Octo- 
ber 24,  1748,  ‘ Semiramis  ’ was  performed  at  Fontainebleau  and 

N 2 


180 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1748 


/ 


well  received.  The  play  is  still  of  interest  to  English  people — 
not  for  itself,  but  for  the  ‘ Advertisement  * which  precedes  it : and 
which  contains  the  most  famous  and  the  most  adverse  criticism 
upon  Shakespeare  in  the  world.  He  was  ‘ a drunken  savage  ’ : 
and  ‘ Hamlet  ’ ‘ a coarse  and  barbarous  piece  which  would  not  be 
endured  by  the  dregs  of  the  people  in  France  or  Italy.’  In  his 
head  ‘ Nature  delighted  to  bring  together  the  noblest  imagination 
with  the  heaviest  grossness.*  This  was  Voltaire’s  most  remark- 
able word  on  the  great  Englishman.  But  it  was  not  his  last. 

Before  ‘ Semiramis  ’ was  performed  at  Court  Voltaire  had 
returned  to  Luneville.  The  excitements  of  Paris  had  been  too 
much  for  him.  From  being  always  ailing,  he  was  now  really  ill. 
Longchamp  was  his  travelling  companion.  By  the  time  they 
reached  that  unlucky  Chalons,  on  September  12,  Voltaire  was  in 
a high  fever  and  compelled  to  take  to  his  bed  in  a wretched  post- 
house.  Longchamp,  seeing  that  his  condition  was  critical  (Voltaire 
never  gave  in  to  illness  until  he  could  neither  stand  nor  speak), 
told  the  bishop  and  intendant  of  the  place.  They  hastened  to  the 
patient  and  offered  him  hospitality,  which  he  declined ; and  then 
they  sent  him  a doctor.  He  listened  to  the  professional  advice 
very  patiently.  Long  ago,  at  Cirey,  Madame  de  Graffigny  had 
noted  his  good  humour  and  politeness  in  sickness  : and  recorded 
how  he  was  grateful  even  for  advice  and  prayers  ! His  gratitude 
for  advice  fortunately  did  not  extend  to  following  it.  On  the 
present  occasion  he  heard  meekly  and  replied  laconically  when  he 
was  told  he  must  be  bled  and  swallow  various  violent  and  nauseous 
mixtures.  But  he  was  not  bled  and  he  did  not  take  the  medicines. 
Temperance  and  exercise  in  health,  and  abstinence  and  rest  in 
illness,  were  the  main  principles  of  the  system  which  he  followed 
all  his  life.  That  with  a wretched  constitution  and  a fatal  habit 
of  taking  too  little  sleep  and  doing  far  too  much  brain-work,  he 
lived  to  be  eighty-four  at  a period  when  the  threescore  years  and 
ten  of  the  Psalmist  were  accounted  very  old  age,  is  a proof  that 
his  regime  was  not  wholly  a mistaken  one. 

On  the  present  occasion  he  was  so  ill  that  he  thought  himself 
dying.  But  he  still  read  and  still  dictated  letters  to  Longchamp  ; 
though  he  was  so  weak  he  could  only  sign  himself  ‘ V.’  After 
a few  days  on  a self-imposed  diet  of  tea,  toast,  and  barleywater, 
the  fever  left  him.  He  was  far  too  feeble  to  stand.  But  he  made 


Mt.  54]  THE  MARQUIS  DE  SAINT-LAMBERT 


181 


Longchamp  wrap  him  up  in  his  dressing-gown  and  carry  him 
into  the  post-chaise,  in  which  they  proceeded  towards  Luneville* 
He  was  still  so  ill  that  he  travelled  thirty  miles  without  uttering 
a single  word.  Before  this,  unknown  to  him,  Longchamp,  who 
was  very  sincerely  attached  to  him,  had  written  to  tell  Madame 
du  Chatelet  and  Madame  Denis  of  his  condition.  Once,  Emilie 
would  have  hastened  to  him,  and  half  killed  him  with  her 
vigorous,  overwhelming  affection  and  attentions.  It  was  as  well 
for  his  health  that  she  was  quite  engrossed  with  her  lover  at 
Luneville  and  simply  sent  a courier  with  a message. 

That  message  cheered  the  sick  man  a little.  If  he  was  but 
her  friend,  he  was  her  very  faithful  friend.  And  friendship  meant 
much  more  to  Voltaire  than  to  most  people. 

He  was  better  by  the  time  he  reached  Luneville.  The  urgent 
desire  to  get  well  as  soon  as  possible,  on  that  old  principle  that 
illness  was  a kind  of  degradation,  may  have  helped  his  recovery. 

Madame  du  Chatelet  insisted  upon  his  being  cheerful  because 
she  felt  so  herself.  He  was  soon  fairly  well  again,  and  that 
miserable  journey  faded  into  a bad  dream. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  October  of  1748,  Stanislas,  and  his 
little  Court  with  him,  moved  again  to  Commercy.  The  guilty 
loves  of  Madame  du  Chatelet  and  Saint-Lambert  were  still  not 
even  suspected  by  Voltaire.  The  guardsman,  who  soon  resigned 
his  commission  to  become  Grand  Master  of  Stanislas’  Royal 
Wardrobe,  seems  to  have  been  not  a little  embarrassed  by  the 
vehemence  of  Emilie’s  passion.  But  in  exact  proportion  as  he 
was  cold,  she  was  ardent.  His  letters  to  her  have  not  survived ; 
but  from  hers  to  him  it  is  evident  that  while  she  was  imprudent, 
headlong,  and  reckless,  he  was  at  least  cool  enough  to  see  danger 
and  discourage  the  maddest  of  her  schemes. 

The  discovery  of  their  secret  was  of  course  only  a matter  of 
time.  One  night  early  in  that  October  of  1748  at  Commercy, 
Voltaire  walked  into  Madame  du  Chatelet’s  apartments,  unan- 
nounced as  his  habit  was,  and  there  in  a little  room  at  the  end  of 
the  suite,  lighted  by  only  one  candle,  he  found  the  handsome 
young  soldier  and  his  clever,  foolish,  elderly  mistress  ‘talking 
upon  something  besides  poetry  and  philosophy.’ 


182 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1748 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  DEATH  OF  MADAME  DU  CHATELET 

If  the  invasion  of  Silesia  by  King  Anti-Machiavelli-Frederick-the- 
Great  had  given  Voltaire  a moral  shock  difficult  to  recover  from, 
he  experienced  a shock  far  greater  in  degree  and  kind  now. 

He  had  been  slow  to  see  anything.  But  when  he  did  see, 
he  saw  all.  He  broke  into  the  most  passionate  and  violent 
reproaches.  The  lofty  Saint-Lambert  responded  that  no  one  had 
the  right  to  criticise  his  conduct,  and  that  if  M.  de  Voltaire  did 
not  like  it,  he  had  better  leave  the  chateau.  The  remark  irritated 
Voltaire  to  a frenzy.  Emilie  stood  by,  nonplussed  for  once  in 
her  life,  not  at  all  ashamed,  but  in  very  considerable  difficulty. 
One  can  fancy  the  half  dark  study,  the  abominably  aggravating 
coolness  of  Saint-Lambert,  and  the  inarticulate  fury  of  Voltaire. 
He  flung  himself  out  of  the  room  in  one  of  the  greatest  passions 
of  his  life.  He  called  Longchamp,  said  that  he  must  beg, 
borrow,  or  steal  a post-chaise,  and  make  ready  to  start  for  Paris 
that  very  night.  The  artful  valet  went  straight  to  Madame  du 
Chatelet  for  an  explanation.  ‘ No  post-chaise  is  to  be  found  on 
any  consideration,’  said  Emilie.  An  outcry  would  ruin  her 
reputation.  (It  is  inconceivable,  but  true,  that  Madame  du 
Chatelet  considered  her  reputation  as  yet  immaculate.)  At  two 
o’clock  in  the  morning  Longchamp  came  to  his  master’s  rooms 
and  announced  that  a post-chaise  was  an  impossibility.  Then 
ride  to  Nancy  at  daybreak  and  get  one ! M.  de  Voltaire’s  passion 
had  not  yet  spent  its  force.  He  went  to  bed.  And  Longchamp 
crept  down  again  to  Madame  du  Chatelet.  That  marvellous 
woman  was  writing  at  her  desk,  and  announced  the  extraordinary 
intention  of  going  to  see  M.  de  Voltaire  herself,  then  and  there, 
and  bring  him  to  reason. 

She  did  it.  She  took  a seat  on  the  end  of  his  bed.  She 


JEt.  54]  DEATH  OF  MADAME  DU  CHATELET 


183 


spoke  to  him  in  English,  that  old  language  of  their  quarrels  and 
love,  and  by  a tender  name,  long  disused.  Longchamp  lit 
a couple  of  candles  and  retired — to  listen  to  the  conversation 
through  the  wall.  It  was  the  most  marvellous  conversation  in 
the  world.  They  spoke  in  French  now.  Emilie  tried  to  excuse 
herself — somehow.  The  lean,  furious,  exhausted,  unhappy  man 
in  bed  started  up. 

‘ Believe  you  ! ’ he  cried.  4 Now  ! I have  sacrificed  health 
and  fortune  for  you,  and  you  have  deceived  me.’ 

And  Emilie  proceeded  to  explain  with  a perfect  plainness  of 
speech  that  Voltaire  had  long  ceased  to  love  her  as  a lover,  and 
that  since  she  must  love  someone,  he  should  be  pleased  that 
her  choice  had  fallen  on  a mutual  friend,  like  M.  de  Saint- 
Lambert. 

How  the  piercing  eyes  in  the  thin  face  on  the  pillow  must 
have  looked  her  through  and  through  ! Voltaire  answered  with 
a very  fine  irony : c Madame,  you  are  always  right ; but  if  things 
must  be  so,  do  not  let  me  see  them.’ 

Before  she  left  him,  she  embraced  him.  She  had  succeeded 
in  her  aim  so  far  that  he  was  calmer. 

The  rest  of  the  night  the  energetic  woman  spent  in  appeasing 
Saint-Lambert,  who  considered  Voltaire  had  insulted  him. 

Voltaire  was  ill  in  bed  the  next  day.  It  must  be  allowed  he 
had  an  excuse  for  illness  this  time.  And  behold,  as  the  evening 
drew  in,  the  young  Marquis  comes  in  person  to  make  inquiries 
after  the  invalid’s  health,  and  the  invalid  admits  him.  Saint- 
Lambert  makes  very  handsome  apologies  for  the  hasty  words 
which  had  escaped  him  in  a moment  of  agitation.  Voltaire  takes 
him  by  both  hands  and  embraces  him.  ‘ Mon  enfant , I have 
forgotten  all.  It  was  I who  was  wrong.  You  are  at  the  happy 
age  of  love  and  pleasure.  Make  the  most  of  both.’ 

The  very  next  day  the  three  met  at  supper  at  Madame  de 
Boufflers’,  and  all  enjoyed  themselves  immensely.  All  idea  of 
the  post-chaise  and  Paris  was  dismissed.  Did  Voltaire  recall 
that  gay  episode  of  his  youth  when  he  and  de  Genonville  had 
shared  the  smiles  of  Mademoiselle  de  Livri  ? 

In  1749  he  actually  wrote  Saint-Lambert  a beautiful  gallant 
poem  on  the  event  which  had  for  the  time  being  so  much 
disturbed  his  peace  : 


184 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1748-49 


Saint-Lambert,  it  is  all  for  thee 
The  flower  grows : 

The  rose’s  thorns  are  but  for  me  : 

For  thee,  the  rose — 

and  went  on  to  say  in  flowing  couplets  how  the  ‘ astronomic 
Emilie 7 had  renounced  mathematics  and  inky  fingers  for  those 
‘ beautiful  airs  which  Love  repeats  and  Newton  never  knew.’ 

By  October  17  the  ex-lover,  the  lover,  and  the  mistress  had 
returned  to  Luneville  with  Stanislas’  Court  (of  which  Voltaire 
justly  complained  as  being  ‘ a little  ambulant  ’)  on  terms  of  perfect 
amity.  The  whole  episode  had  occupied  only  a few  days.  And 
presently  Voltaire  was  once  more  engrossed  heart  and  soul  in  his 
‘ History  of  Louis  XV.’ 

The  explanation  of  his  conduct  lies,  as  ever,  in  character. 

He  was  angry  at  first  because  he  had  an  uncommonly  quick 
temper  and  a great  provocation.  But  he  was  always  a philosopher 
as  he  grew  calmer.  It  was  a very  bad  world.  That  was  his  life- 
long conviction.  So  much  the  more  reason  to  make  the  best  of 
it ! He  had  lost  a selfish,  irritating,  and  exigeante  mistress. 
But  there  was  no  reason  why  he  should  not  keep  a clever  woman 
for  a friend.  Emilie  had,  after  all,  but  acted  on  a principle  which 
was  his  as  well  as  hers  ; that,  in  the  relation  of  the  sexes,  when 
duty  ceases  to  be  a pleasure,  it  ceases  to  be  a duty  also.  (It  is 
but  just  to  Voltaire  and  to  Madame  du  Chatelet  to  say  that  they 
did  not  carry  this  remarkable  theory,  not  yet  out  of  vogue,  into 
any  other  department  of  morals.) 

The  age  looked  upon  such  irregularities  simply  as  subjects  for 
a jest  or  an  epigram.  And  every  man  sees  in  some  degree  with 
the  eyes  of  the  time  in  which  he  lives. 

So  Voltaire  wrote  ‘ Louis  XV.’  The  pain  passed,  as  sharp 
pains  are  apt  to  do,  quickly.  He  and  Madame  du  Chatelet, 
unaccompanied  by  Saint-Lambert,  left  Luneville  for  Cirey  about 
December  20,  1748.  The  journey  was  very  like  a hundred  they 
had  made  in  old  times.  At  that  fatal  Chalons,  Emilie  would  call 
on  the  bishop  and  keep  the  post-horses  waiting  the  whole  day 
while  she  played  cards,  and  Voltaire  lost  his  temper  with  her  just 
as  if  he  had  been  her  lover  still.  Once  at  Cirey,  he  was  engrossed 
in  hard  work,  and  she  wrote  a preface  to  her  Newton  when  she 
was  not  writing  love  letters  to  Saint-Lambert.  Her  infidelity 


^Et.  54-55]  DEATH  OF  MADAME  DU  CHATELET  185 


would  hardly  have  altered  the  course  of  her  life  were  it  not  for 
that  rigorous  law  that  ‘ every  sin  creates  its  own  punishment.’ 

The  events  that  followed  are  such  as  are  best  passed  over  in 
the  fewest  words  possible.  In  this  December  of  1748  at  Cirey, 
Madame  du  Chatelet  found  that  she  was  again  to  be  a mother. 
Saint-Lambert  was  summoned.  He,  Voltaire,  and  the  unhappy 
woman  consulted  together  on  what  course  they  would  take. 
Emilie  was  in  tears  at  first ; and  they  all  ended  in  laughter. 
They  decided  on  a daring  comedy.  The  Marquis — that  simple 
bonhomme — was  summoned  home,  feted,  caressed — and  deceived. 
It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  he  was  delighted  with  his  wife’s  pro- 
spects, and  thought  he  had  reason  to  be  so  delighted.  He  left 
Cirey,  spreading  the  good  news  abroad.  And  Madame  du  Chatelet 
complacently  considered  that  her  reputation  was  saved. 

Nothing  damns  the  eighteenth  century  deeper  than  the  fact 
that  this  loathsome  story  was  its  darling  anecdote ; and  that  his 
criminal  connection  with  Madame  du  Chatelet,  and  the  sinister 
events  which  were  its  consequence,  made  Saint-Lambert  the  very 
height  of  fashion.  Every  memoir  of  the  period  has  the  tale  in 
detail.  Longchamp  gloats  over  it.  The  fine  ladies  of  Paris  made 
mots  upon  it,  of  which  in  our  day  a decent  bargee  would  be 
ashamed.  If  the  French  Revolution  immolated  some  of  the  very 
persons  who  brought  it  about,  was  the  injustice  so  gross  ? A 
Voltaire  shared  the  vices  of  the  social  conditions  he  condemned, 
and  was  himself  in  some  sort  a part  of  that  system  which  set 
itself  above  decency  and  duty  and  which  he  knew  to  be  fatal  to 
the  good  of  mankind. 

He  came  out  of  this  unclean  comedy  less  smirched  than  the 
other  actors  therein.  But  that  is  to  say  very  little.  To  be  a part 
of  it  at  all  was  defilement  enough. 

By  February  17  of  the  new  year  1749  Voltaire  and  Emilie 
were  installed  in  the  Rue  Traversiere-Saint-Honore  in  Paris. 

The  bonhomme  had  rejoined  his  regiment.  Saint-Lambert 
was  in  attendance  at  Luneville. 

Voltaire  had  written  a 4 Panegyric  of  Louis  XV.’  which  was 
to  be  recited  to  his  Majesty  by  Richelieu  when  the  Academy  went 
in  a body  on  February  21  to  offer  their  congratulations  to  the 
King  upon  the  establishment  of  peace.  But,  as  so  often  happened 
with  Voltaire’s  writings,  the  thing  had  become  public  too  soon. 


186 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1749 


Friend  Richelieu,  enraged  at  hearing  his  recitation  being  mur- 
mured and  quoted  by  the  courtiers  about  him,  would  not  recite 
it  at  all.  Voltaire  was  not  present  on  the  occasion.  When  he 
heard  what  Richelieu  had  done,  he  flung  his  old  friend’s  portrait 
into  the  fire  in  a rage. 

March  10  saw  a brief  revival  of  ‘ Semiramis  ’ : but  all  the 
same  it  was  the  fashion  just  now  to  prefer  Crebillon  and  his 
4 Catilina.’ 

On  May  27  Voltaire  obtained  the  privilege  of  selling  his  use- 
less post  of  Gentleman-in- Ordinary,  while  he  was  allowed  to 
retain  its  title.  But  privilege  or  no  privilege,  he  did  not  stand 
well  at  Court.  King  Stanislas  had  written  a work  called  the 
1 Christian  Philosopher  ’ ; in  which  his  good  daughter,  Queen 
Marie  Leczinska,  saw,  disapprovingly,  the  freethinking  influence 
of  Voltaire.  He  still  courted  Madame  de  Pompadour;  but  no 
Pompadour  ever  yet  imperilled  her  own  position  for  any  friend 
in  the  world. 

Another  king  and  court  were,  indeed,  particularly  anxious 
that  Voltaire  should  return  to  them,  but  Voltaire  refused 
Frederick’s  invitation  firmly.  He  was  really  ill,  as  he  said.  But 
there  was  another  reason.  He  had  resolved  not  to  leave  Madame 
du  Chatelet  until  the  dark  hour  that  was  coming  upon  her  had 
passed. 

They  fell,  even  in  Paris,  into  their  old  habit  of  hard  work. 
Emilie  worked  to  kill  thought,  to  stifle  a dreadful  foreboding 
which  was  with  her  always.  She  studied  mathematics  with 
Clairaut,  who  had  once  visited  Cirey  and  was  ‘ one  of  the  best 
geometricians  in  the  universe.’  She  shut  herself  up  with  him 
for  hours  and  hours,  resolving  problems.  She  plunged  into  all 
kinds  of  gaiety.  Her  letters  to  Saint-Lambert  are  the  letters  of 
a very  unhappy  woman — tortured  with  jealousy  and  doubts, 
exigeante , fearful,  unquiet.  He  was  true  to  her — and  cold.  She 
tried  to  thaw  his  ice  at  the  fire  of  her  own  passion.  4 1 do  not 
even  love  Newton,’  she  wrote  ; ‘ only  you.  But  it  is  a point  of 
honour  with  me  to  finish  my  work.’ 

One  day,  she  and  Clairaut  were  so  engrossed  in  their  labours, 
that  Voltaire,  whose  philosophy  never  could  endure  being  kept 
waiting  for  meals,  bounded  up  from  the  supper-table,  ran  upstairs 
‘ four  steps  at  a time,’  found  the  door  locked  and  smashed  it  in 


JEt.  55]  DEATH  OF  MADAME  DU  CHATELET 


187 


with  his  foot  in  a rage.  ‘ Are  you  in  league  to  kill  me  ? ’ he  cried 
as  he  went  down  again,  followed  by  the  too-zealous  mathe- 
maticians, who  had  the  grace  to  be  ashamed  of  themselves. 
There  was  a very  cross,  silent  supper  d trois.  The  next  morning 
Madame  du  Chatelet,  feeling  she  owed  her  friend  a reparation, 
suggested  that  she  should  take  her  morning  coffee  in  his  rooms. 
She  did  so,  out  of  a priceless  porcelain  cup  and  saucer,  which  Vol- 
taire, whose  temper  was  still  rather  irritable,  broke  by  a clumsy 
movement.  Madame  reproached  him  sharply.  He  retaliated.  He 
grumbled  a good  deal  at  the  exorbitant  sum  he  had  to  pay  to 
replace  the  bric-a-brac.  Both  he  and  Emilie  were  at  the  end  of 
their  tether.  Yet  they  were  good  to  each  other.  Emilie  felt  she 
owed  Voltaire  much  for  his  pardon,  and  his  reasonableness.  And 
Voltaire  never  appears  even  to  have  thought  that  her  faithlessness 
as  his  mistress  could  exonerate  him  from  fidelity  to  her  as  his 
friend.  He  knew  that  she  was  unhappy.  Compassion  was  in  his 
nature.  It  is  that  quality  which  made  him  to  the  last  hour  of 
his  life,  in  spite  of  his  gibes  and  cynicisms,  something  more  than 
commonly  lovable. 

In  April,  Stanislas  had  come  up  for  a fortnight  to  the  French 
Court.  The  unhappy  Marquise  had  then  been  able  to  make 
arrangements  for  a future  sojourn  at  Luneville,  of  great  import- 
ance to  her  : and  of  which  she  wrote,  eagerly  and  feverishly,  to 
Saint-Lambert. 

Voltaire  was  now  writing  a play,  ‘Nanine’ — founded  on 
Richardson’s  ‘ Pamela.’  When  it  was  produced  on  June  16, 1749, 
he  had  followed  his  old  plan  of  filling  the  house  as  much  as 
possible  with  his  friends.  There  were  a few  spectators  in  the 
gallery,  however,  who  would  talk  aloud.  The  nervous  and 
sensitive  author  could  by  no  means  endure  that.  Up  he  got  on 
to  his  feet.  4 Silence,  you  boors,  silence  ! ’ he  cried  ; and  silent 
they  were.  Whenever  he  saw  his  own  plays  he  found  it  impossible 
to  contain  himself.  He  not  only  trained  the  actors  beforehand ; 
but  he  must  lead  the  laughter  and  the  tears  of  the  parterre  at 
the  performance.  And,  to  be  sure,  if  there  is  anyone  who  should 
know  where  a play  is  pathetic  and  where  it  is  comic,  it  is  the 
man  who  wrote  it. 

He  and  Emilie  were  in  Paris  from  February  until  the  end  of 
June.  Frederick  repeated  his  invitation  warmly.  ‘You  are  not 


188 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTA  IRE 


[1749 


a sage-femme  after  all,’  lie  wrote  to  Voltaire  scornfully,  ‘and 
Madame  will  get  on  very  well  without  you.’  Any  sarcasm  pene- 
trated Voltaire’s  thin  skin.  But  he  replied  gravely, ‘Not  even 
Frederick  the  Great  can  now  prevent  me  fulfilling  a duty  I believe 
to  be  indispensable.  I am  neither  doctor  nor  nurse,  but  I am 
a friend  and  will  not  leave,  even  for  your  Majesty,  a woman  who 
may  die  in  September.’ 

He  was  true  to  his  word.  Late  in  June,  while  ‘ Nanine  ’ was 
still  running,  he  and  Madame  du  Chatelet  went  to  Cirey  at  her 
urgent  desire.  When  they  were  there,  the  most  versatile  of 
human  creatures,  the  author  of  the  ‘ Pucelle  ’ and  the  prim 
prologue  for  a girls’  school,  wrote  at  her  request  a eulogy  of 
Saint-Louis,  and  a very  good  eulogy  too,  for  an  abbe  who  had  to 
deliver  one  before  the  Academy  and  could  by  no  means  compose 
it  himself. 

It  was  at  Emilie’s  desire,  too,  that  they  left  Cirey,  after  only 
a fortnight’s  stay  there — ‘ these  delightful  rooms,  books  and 
liberty,  to  go  and  play  at  comets  ’ at  Luneville.  A few  days  at 
Commercy  had  preceded  their  stay  at  Luneville,  which  they 
reached  on  July  21,  1749.  It  was  there  that  Madame  would  find 
Saint-Lambert.  It  was  there  that  the  event  which  she  dreaded 
more  every  day  was  to  take  place.  Voltaire  was  not  only  sick  to 
death  of  that  wearisome  mockery  of  astronomy  with  which 
Stanislas’  little  Court  was  still  amusing  itself,  but  was  further 
annoyed  by  being  very  uncomfortable  and  ill-attended  to  in  his 
rooms,  in  which  he  shut  himself  up  as  much  as  he  could.  He 
bore  the  discomfort— not  at  all  in  silence  indeed — but  he  bore  it. 

A quarrel  on  the  subject  with  Alliot,  who  was  commissioner- 
general  of  the  household  of  Stanislas,  and  a very  economical 
commissioner  too,  burst  out  on  August  29,  and  Voltaire  relieved 
his  feelings  in  some  vif  little  notes  : one  of  which  he  addressed 
to  the  King  himself,  and  besought  his  Majesty  to  remedy  the 
defects  in  the  meals,  lighting,  and  firing  supplied  to  his  guest. 
Emilie,  who  had  so  urgent  a reason  for  remaining  at  Luneville, 
did  her  clever  best  to  soothe  her  ami . He  was  soothed  apparently. 

Meanwhile  the  little  Court  went  its  usual  way.  Madame  de 
Boufflers  was  her  smiling,  easy  self — that  dame  de  volupte  ‘who,’ 
as  she  said  in  her  epitaph,  ‘ for  greater  security,  made  her  Paradise 
in  this  world.’  There  were  also  the  austerer,  priestly  influences 


Mt.  55]  DEATH  OF  MADAME  DU  CHATELET 


189 


trying  to  gain  Stanislas.  Poetry  was  a fashion  among  the  guests 
and  the  courtiers,  as  also  the  inevitable  play-acting.  Saint- 
Lambert  was  still  at  work  on  that  lengthy  poem,  ‘ The  Seasons.* 
The  summer  was  waning.  Emilie  plunged  into  every  excess  of 
gaiety,  and  every  excess  of  work.  She  forget  that  she  was  three- 
and-forty,  not  three-and-twenty.  To  forget  everything — that  was 
her  aim — to  have  no  time  to  think  of  past  or  future.  His  duties 
often  called  Saint-Lambert  away  to  Nancy,  and  when  he  was 
absent  the  wretched  woman  endured  torments  of  loneliness,  help- 
lessness, and  foreboding.  He  reassured  her  when  he  was  there. 
He  was  always  so  calm ! As  September  drew  near  she  sent  for 
Mademoiselle  du  Thil  from  Paris,  that  ill-advised  friend  of  hers, 
once  her  lady-companion,  who  on  one  memorable  occasion  had 
lent  her  money — to  lose  at  the  Queen’s  table.  The  bonhomme 
appeared  on  the  scene.  Voltaire  was  writing  constant  letters  to 
his  friends,  anticipating  the  coming  event  gaily.  Madame  had 
a herculean  constitution.  All  would  be  well ! She  was  still 
constantly  at  her  desk.  She  employed  many  hours  in  doing  up 
her  manuscripts  and  letters  in  parcels,  and  giving  Longchamp 

directions  as  to  the  persons  who  were  to  receive  them — if — if . 

It  was  a point  of  honour  with  her,  as  she  had  said,  to  finish 
Newton.  On  August  80,  1749,  she  wrote  her  last  letter  to  Saint- 
Lambert.  4 1 am  wretched  to  a degree  which  would  frighten  me 
if  I believed  in  presentiments,’  she  said. 

On  September  4 Voltaire  was  writing  delightedly  to  announce 
the  birth  of  a little  girl  and  the  well-being  of  the  mother.  The 
infant  was  sent  straight  into  the  village  to  be  nursed,  and  in  the 
stress  of  the  painful  events  which  followed,  died  almost  un- 
noticed. Madame  du  Chatelet  progressed  favourably.  The  little 
Court  was  in  the  highest  spirits  and  spent  most  of  its  time  in  her 
room.  On  September  9,  the  weather  being  exceedingly  hot,  the 
patient  asked  for  an  iced  drink.  It  was  given  her  and  she  was 
seized  with  convulsions. 

Stanislas’  physician  hastened  to  her  and  for  the  moment  she 
seemed  better.  The  next  day,  September  10,  the  convulsions 
returned  : and  two  doctors  from  Nancy  were  called  in.  The 
Marquise  again  appeared  better.  In  the  evening  Voltaire  and  the 
Marquis  du  Chatelet  went  down  to  supper  with  Madame  de  Bouf- 
flers — still  not  the  least  anticipating  any  danger.  Longchamp, 


190 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1749 


Saint-Lambert,  and  Mademoiselle  du  Thil  were  left  in  the  room 
with  the  sick  woman.  Eight  or  ten  minutes  later,  they  heard 
a rattle  in  her  throat.  They  did  what  they  could.  Mademoiselle 
hastened  downstairs  to  tell  Voltaire  and  the  Marquis.  The 
horrified  supper-party  hurried  to  the  bedroom  and  a scene  of 
dreadful  confusion  ensued.  Madame  du  Chatelet  was  already 
quite  unconscious.  No  one  had  time  to  think  ‘ of  priest,  of  Jesuit, 
or  of  Sacrament.’  But  the  Marquise  was  past  their  help.  ‘ She 
knew  none  of  the  horrors  of  death,’  wrote  Voltaire.  ‘ It  was  her 
friends  who  felt  those.’ 

His  own  anguish  of  spirit,  when  the  dreadful  truth  was  borne 
in  upon  him,  rendered  him  beside  himself.  He  and  Saint-Lam- 
bert remained  by  the  bed  awhile.  And  then  Voltaire,  who  had 
loved  his  mistress  longer  and  better  than  his  supplanter,  dragged 
himself  away,  blind  and  dull  with  misery.  He  stumbled  at  the 
foot  of  the  staircase  without,  and  when  Saint-Lambert,  who  had 
followed,  would  have  helped  him,  Voltaire  turned  upon  him 
with  a bitter  reproach.  Its  terms  are  so  unrepeatable  that  the 
eighteenth  century  repeated  them  ad  nauseam  : and  the  twentieth 
may  as  well  forget  them  if  it  can. 

The  brief  remainder  of  that  fatal  day  Voltaire  spent  in  writing 
the  bitter  news  to  his  friends. 

If  any  proof  be  needed  of  the  vehemence  and  sincerity  of  his 
feeling  for  the  dead  woman,  those  letters  give  it. 

The  next  day  Madame  de  Boufflers  took  from  the  Marquise’s 
ring  a portrait  of  Saint-Lambert  and  bade  Longchamp  give  the 
ring  to  the  Marquis  du  Chatelet.  A little  later  Voltaire  asked 
Longchamp  for  the  ring  in  question.  Thirteen  years  before,  he 
had  given  Emilie  his  own  portrait  for  it,  with  these  lines, 

Bavier  ’graved  this  likeness  for  you. 

Recognise  it,  and  his  art. 

As  for  me,  a greater  Master 

Has  engraved  you — on  my  heart. 

His  portrait  had  displaced  one  of  the  Duke  of  Richelieu’s — and 
now  his,  in  its  turn,  had  made  way  for  Saint-Lambert’s. 

Voltaire  might  well  turn  away  saying  that  all  women  are 
alike ; and  trying  to  comfort  himself  with  the  antique  and  barren 
reflection  that,  after  all,  it  was  the  way  of  the  world. 


;Et.  55]  DEATH  OF  MADAME  DU  CHATELET 


191 


Among  Madame  du  Chatelet’s  effects  was  a large  parcel  of 
letters.  She  left  a memorandum  to  beg  her  complaisant  husband 
to  burn  them  unread.  ‘ They  can  be  of  no  use  to  him  and  have 
nothing  to  do  with  his  affairs.’  He  did  so,  on  his  brother’s 
prudent  advice.  But  Longchamp  observed  him  make  a very  wry 
face  at  certain  ones  of  which,  being  uppermost,  he  caught  sight. 
The  cautious  valet  rescued  from  the  flames  the  whole  of  Voltaire’s 
‘ Treatise  on  Metaphysics  ’ and  some  letters,  afterwards  also 
burnt.  Among  the  destroyed  manuscripts  were  historical  notes 
of  Voltaire’s,  of  which  he  deplores  the  loss  in  his  preface  to  his 
‘Essay  on  the  Manners  and  Mind  of  Nations.’  It  has  been 
thought,  but  is  not  certain,  that  the  whole  of  his  eight  volumes 
of  letters  to  Madame  du  Chatelet  also  perished  in  this  conflagra- 
tion. If  they  did  not,  a new  Voltaire,  a new  world,  rich  in  human 
interest,  as  no  doubt  in  wit  and  philosophy,  still  remains  to  be 
discovered  by  some  literary  Columbus.  At  present,  of  all  the 
letters  he  wrote  to  her,  the  human  being  with  whom  he  was  most 
intimate  and  who  shared  the  deepest  secrets  of  his  soul  and  the 
highest  aspirations  of  his  genius,  there  can  be  found  but  one  gay 
little  note. 

Madame  du  Chatelet  was  buried  with  all  honour  at  Luneville. 
Paris  had  already  flayed  her  dead  body  with  epigrams.  She  had 
not  been  too  immoral  for  its  taste.  That  was  impossible.  But 
she  had  been  far  too  clever.  One  indignant  person  said  that  it 
was  to  be  hoped  the  cause  of  her  death  would  be  the  last  of  her 
airs.  1 To  die  in  childbed  at  her  age  is  to  wish  to  make  oneself 
peculiar  : it  is  to  pretend  to  do  nothing  like  other  people.’  Frede- 
rick the  Great  wrote  her  epitaph.  ‘ Here  lies  she  who  lost  her 
life  in  giving  birth  to  an  unfortunate  infant  and  a treatise  on 
philosophy.’  Maupertuis  and  Marmontel  spoke  of  her  in  terms 
of  warm  admiration.  And  Voltaire  prefixed  to  her  translation  of 
Newton,  published  in  1754,  at  once  the  kindest  and  the  truest 
estimate  of  her  character  yet  made. 

Madame  du  Chatelet  was  intellectually  a very  great  woman. 
She  had  a mind  essentially  clear  and  logical — the  mind  of  a 
clever  man.  She  had  not  only  a passion  for  learning  rare  in  her 
sex,  but  for  exactly  the  kind  of  learning  in  which  her  sex  gene- 
rally fails.  She  had,  too,  an  intellectual  fairness  strangely  un- 
feminine. She  was  long  the  champion  of  Leibnitz  against 


192 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTA  IKE 


[1749 


Newton  ; and  then,  convinced  of  her  mistake,  acknowledged  it, 
and  made  it  the  business  of  her  life  to  prove  it  and  to  translate 
and  explain  Newton  for  the  benefit  of  the  French  people.  In  an 
age  busily  idle,  she  was  distinguished  by  a noble  and  untiring 
industry.  In  an  age  of  scandal,  she  was  charitable.  For  all 
those  terrible  fine  clothes  and  that  passion  for  high  play  and 
taking  youthful  parts  in  amateur  theatricals,  the  laugh  of  the 
de  Staals  and  the  du  Deffands  at  her  expense  turns  against 
them  now. 

Still  preserved  among  her  letters  are  her  ‘ Reflections  on 
Happiness.’  She  plainly  avows  there  that  ‘ rational  self-indul- 
gence ’ was  her  idea  of  it.  Upon  that  rock  her  barque  split.  She 
chose  pleasure  before  duty  and  gained  a faithless  Richelieu,  fifteen 
jealous,  feverish  years  with  Voltaire,  and  a wretchedness  from  the 
cool  love  of  the  lofty  Saint-Lambert,  of  which  every  letter  she 
wrote  him  is  proof. 

Out  of  the  picture  painted  by  Loir  there  still  looks  down  the 
shrewd,  smiling  face — reflective  eyes,  clever  forehead,  mobile  lips, 
drooping  nose — of  the  woman  who  was  at  once  Voltaire’s  curse 
and  blessing — who,  if  she  had  been  all  good  might  have  been  his 
blessing  only,  and  if  she  had  been  all  bad  would  have  been  curse 
alone.  At  the  Revolution,  some  wretches  broke  open  her  coffin 
to  steal  the  lead. 

There  had  been  gold  in  her  heart  once,  but  the  world  and  the 
flesh  had  overlaid  it  in  dross. 


AEt.  55] 


193 


CHAPTER  XX 

PAEIS,  ‘ OEESTE  ’ AND  ‘ EOME  SAUVEE  ’ 

The  death  of  Madame  du  Chatelet  marks  one  of  the  great  epochs 
of  Voltaire’s  life. 

For  a while  he  was  utterly  crushed  and  broken.  He  wrote  of 
himself  to  his  friends  as  the  most  wretched  of  men.  He  was 
alone,  abandoned,  dying.  Everything  that  made  life  worth 
having  had  been  taken  from  him — and  he  would  live  no  longer. 

There  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  he  felt  passionately 
every  word  he  wrote,  and  that  he  suffered  wretchedly.  It  was 
characteristic  of  his  nation  and  himself  to  give  grief  words.  It 
was  characteristic  of  himself  to  remember  nothing  but  good  of 
that  * friend  of  twenty  years  ’ who  had  been  taken  from  him.  He 
recalled  Cirey  and  the  springtime  of  their  passion,  and  forgot 
Luneville  and  Saint-Lambert.  He  remembered  the  woman  of  a 
splendid  intellect  and  a most  just  judgment : who  was  learned 
without  affectation  of  learnedness ; who  had  ‘ the  genius  of 
Leibnitz,  with  feeling  ’ ; and  the  literary  style  of  a Pascal  or  a 
Nicole.  He  remembered  ‘ her  imperial  sympathy  ’ and  not  her 
‘ shrewish  temper.’  ‘ The  pompons  and  the  world  are  of  her  age, 
and  her  merit  is  above  her  age,  her  sex,  and  ours,’  he  had  written 
to  the  Abbe  de  Sade  in  1738.  He  thought  that  now.  Her 
brilliant  and  ready  understanding  of  his  philosophies,  thoughts, 
aims,  came  back  to  him  overwhelmingly.  She  had  sinned  against 
him  in  the  flesh.  Her  mind  had  been  his  for  ever. 

It  would  indeed  have  been  impossible  but  that  a fifteen  years’ 
connection  with  such  a woman  as  Madame  du  Chatelet  should 
have  had  lifelong  effects  upon  a character  so  impressionable  as 
Voltaire’s.  Her  relentless  logic  and  her  passion  for  hard  facts 
did  a work,  and  a good  work,  upon  his  vivid,  sensitive,  bantering, 
and  versatile  intelligence.  She  added  correctness  to  a style  which 

o 


194 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1749 


has  no  equal  in  the  world  for  interest,  gaiety,  and  satire.  She 
forced  him  to  sound  the  depths  his  matchless  sparkle  hid,  to 
examine  first  principles,  to  advance  step  by  step  in  argument 
with  the  stern  accuracy  of  a Euclid. 

From  his  acquaintance  with  her  he  formed  his  conviction  of 
the  mental  equality  of  women  with  men.  In  his  first  grief  at 
her  loss,  says  Longchamp,  he  wrote  of  her  : 

The  world  has  lost  her  ! She,  sublime,  who,  living 
Loved  pleasures,  arts,  the  truth.  The  gods  in  giving 
Her  their  soul  and  genius,  kept  but  for  their  own 
That  immortality  which  is  for  gods  alone. 

Voltaire  denied  the  verses.  He  was  in  no  mood  for  making 
mediocre  rhymes,  he  said.  But  in  1754  he  certainly  did  write 
that  noble  eulogy  of  her  which  forms  the  preface  to  her  trans- 
lation and  commentary  of  Newton,  and  never  afterwards  spoke 
of  her — and  he  spoke  of  her  often — but  in  terms  of  a reverent 
and  a passionate  admiration. 

For  the  first  few  days  his  grief  was  overwhelming.  King 
Stanislas  was  full  of  compassion,  and  three  times  a day  mingled 
his  tears  with  the  mourner's. 

Luneville  was  now  naturally  horrible  to  Voltaire.  He  thought 
of  going  to  stay  with  a certain  priestly  friend  at  the  Abbey  of 
Senones.  Perhaps  he  would  go  back  to  England  ! He  would 
have  preferred  the  grave — or  thought  he  would  have  preferred 
it — to  either  of  these  alternatives.  About  September  14,  1749, 
he  ended  by  accompanying  the  Marquis  du  Chatelet  to  Cirey. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  realise  that  such  a temperament  as 
Voltaire’s  might  derive  a melancholy  consolation  from  revisiting 
the  scene  ‘ de  ces  heureux  jours  quand  nous  etions  si  malheureux  ! ’ 
It  was  for  the  last  time.  Every  room  in  the  house  must  have 
recalled  her.  Every  corner  in  the  garden  had  its  own  memory. 
There  was  that  inscription  over  the  summer-house — 

A Book  of  Verses  underneath  the  Bough  . . . 

A Jug  of  Wine  . . . and  Thou.  . . . 

Here,  they  had  been  tender.  There,  they  had  quarrelled.  It  is 
not  always  the  most  perfectly  loved  who  are  the  most  bitterly 
mourned.  The  keenest  grief  is  called  remorse. 


JEt.  55]  PARIS,  ‘ ORESTE  ’ AND  ‘ ROME  SAUVEE 


195 


That  goodnatured  old  lady — Madame  de  Champbonin — came 
to  Cirey  to  mingle  her  tears  with  Voltaire’s. 

Longchamp  was  kept  busy  packing  books,  furniture,  vertu , to 
be  transmitted  to  Paris.  Voltaire  and  the  Marquis  settled  their 
money  affairs — much  to  the  advantage  and  the  satisfaction  of 
that  remarkable  bonhomme.  It  was  arranged  that  Voltaire  should 
take  the  whole  of  the  house  in  the  Rue  Traversiere-Saint-Honore 
in  Paris — of  which  hitherto  he  had  only  rented  a part  from  the 
Marquis.  They  parted  at  the  end  of  a fortnight : ‘ on  the  best  of 
terms,’  though  they  never  saw  each  other  again.  Voltaire  also 
retained  a friendship — for  Saint-Lambert. 

He  left  Cirey  about  September  25,  and  proceeded  by  melan- 
choly, slow  stages  to  Paris.  He  stopped  for  a day  or  two  at 
kindly  Madame  de  Champbonin’s ; at  Chalons,  and  at  Rheims, 
and  finally  reached  the  capital. 

If  the  unhappy  man  had  been  miserable  at  Cirey  he  was 
a thousand  times  more  so  in  Paris.  He  was  alone.  The  house 
was  in  a dreadful  confusion  with  the  du  Chatelet  furniture  being 
moved  out  and  the  Voltaire  furniture  being  moved  in.  Voltaire 
was  as  sick  in  body  as  in  mind.  He  tried  to  work.  He  did 
work — with  his  loss  and  his  wretchedness  thrusting  themselves 
on  his  consciousness  all  the  time.  Sometimes  in  the  dead  of 
night,  half  dreaming,  he  would  get  up  and  wander  about  the 
disordered  rooms,  and  fancying  he  saw  Madame  du  Chatelet,  call 
to  her.  Once,  in  the  dark  and  cold,  he  got  up  and  walking 
a few  steps  was  too  weak  to  go  further  and  leant  shivering, 
supported  against  a table — ‘yet  reluctant  to  wake  me,’  says 
Longchamp.  The  unhappy  man  stumbled  into  the  next  room 
presently,  and  against  a great  pile  of  books  lying  on  the  floor. 
Longchamp  found  him  there  at  last,  speechless  and  half  frozen, 
in  the  chilly  dawn  of  the  October  morning.  All  his  letters  of  the 
month  are  miserable  enough.  A few  chosen  friends  were  admitted 
to  see  him  after  a while — Richelieu,  the  d’Argentals,  nephew 
Mignot,  and  Marmontel.  They  would  come  and  sit  by  his  fire  in 
the  evenings  and  try  to  distract  his  thoughts  with  talk  of  the 
drama,  which  he  had  loved.  They  did  their  best  to  rouse  him. 
He  had  certainly  never  needed  rousing  before.  Frederick  the 
Great  wrote  brusquely  to  Algarotti  that  this  Voltaire  talked 
about  his  grief  so  much  he  was  sure  to  get  over  it  quickly. 


196 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1749—50 


Marmontel  speaks  of  him  as  one  moment  weeping  and  the  next 
laughing.  Tears  and  laughter  were  both  genuine  enough,  and 
to  such  a temperament,  quite  natural.  There  was  something  of 
the  child  in  this  Voltaire  to  the  very  last — the  warm  quick 
emotions,  so  keenly  felt,  and  so  keenly  felt  to  be  eternal.  That 
they  were  not  eternal  does  not  impair  their  sincerity  in  the  least. 

He  was  so  lonely  and  miserable  during  that  dismal  autumn  in 
Paris  that  one  day,  exactly  upon  the  same  principle  as  a sorrowing 
widower  marries  his  cook  and  with  much  the  same  disastrous 
results,  he  asked  his  niece,  Madame  Denis,  to  come  and  live  with 
him.  She  could  not  do  so  till  Christmas.  Before  then,  Long- 
champ  declares  he  had  helped  his  master’s  cure  by  showing  him 
some  letters  in  which  Madame  du  Chatelet  had  spoken  slightingly 
of  him.  There  was  certainly  bark  in  that  tonic  if  it  was  admin- 
istered, which  seems  a little  doubtful.  How  did  Longchamp  come 
by  such  letters  ? 

There  was  a sharper  bark  in  the  fact  that  while  Voltaire  was 
weeping  for  a woman  who  had  been  false  to  him,  that  dreary  old 
Crebillon  was  making  fine  headway  at  Court,  had  a pension  from 
the  false  Pompadour,  and  all  Paris  applauding  his  bad  verses. 

It  was  his  enemy,  not  his  friends,  who  roused  Voltaire  at  last. 
He  woke  as  after  a disturbed  dream— at  first  dazed ; shook  him- 
self ; looked  round  ; and  began  life  afresh. 

He  was,  to  be  sure,  fifty-five  years  old.  But  fifty-five  in 
a Voltaire,  though  it  meant  an  old  and  decrepit  body,  meant  a 
vigorous  and  eager  mind,  thirsting  for  life  and  action.  He  was 
a man  of  substance,  and  a man  whose  time  was  his  own.  He 
had  no  ties.  He  had  a reputation  not  a little  feared.  He  had 
the  world  before  him  yet,  and  a world  only  he  could  save.  The 
fighting  zest  to  turn  ‘ dead  Catilina  of  Crebillon  into  “ Rome 
Sauvee  ” of  Voltaire  ’ was  the  spur  that  urged  him  back  to  ‘life 
and  use  and  name  and  fame.’ 

‘Rome  Sauvee’  had  been  written  in  a fortnight  in  this 
August  of  1749,  at  Luneville.  ‘ The  devil  took  possession  of  me, 
and  said  “ Avenge  Cicero  and  France : wash  out  the  shame  of 
your  country.”  ’ Crebillon  had  made  the  subject  a weariness  and 
a foolishness  in  ‘ Catilina.’  How  could  a Voltaire  better  avenge 
France  and  himself — particularly  himself — than  by  turning  the 
same  subject  into  a masterpiece  and  a furore  ? 


Mt.  55-56]  PARIS,  ‘ORESTE’  AND  ‘ROME  SAUVEE’  197 


The  pages  of  ‘Rome  Sauvee’  were  still  wet,  when  he  took 
another  dull  play  of  Crebillon’s — ‘ Electre  ’ — and  turned  it  into 
‘ Oreste.’ 

He  called  together  a few  friends  at  the  house  of  his  ‘ angels,’ 
the  d’Argentals,  and  a few  of  the  chief  actors  and  actresses,  for  a 
reading  of  ‘ Rome  Sauvee  ’ ; and  read  them  ‘ Oreste  ’ instead.  The 
truth  was  the  actors  were  in  want  of  a play  to  act  immediately, 
at  the  end  of  a week.  If  M.  de  Voltaire  could  not  give  them 
one — well,  there  were  other  playwrights  who  could ! M.  de 
Voltaire  considered  that  his  ‘Rome  Sauvee’  would  require  at 
least  six  weeks’  rehearsal ; so  he  read  ‘ Oreste.’  He  went  in 
person  to  obtain  the  censor’s  permission  for  it,  and  did  obtain  it. 

‘ Oreste  ’ appeared  in  public  on  January  12,  1750,  to  a house  K 
equally  crowded  with  the  author’s  friends  and  with  the  faction  of 
Crebillon,  headed  by  Piron  as  usual.  Voltaire  had  written  an 
opening  speech  in  which,  with  a touching  innocence,  he  dis- 
claimed all  idea  of  being  the  rival  of  Crebillon  and  ‘ Electre.’ 

Half  the  house  received  the  play  with  applause  which  had  nothing 
to  do  with  its  merits,  and  the  other  half  with  hisses  which  had 
nothing  to  do  with  its  defects.  The  impulsive  author,  who  was 
in  the  d’Argentals’  box  and  supposed  to  be  incognito , forgot  all 
about  that,  and  leant  over  the  side,  crying,  to  encourage  a burst 
of  applause,  ‘ Courage,  brave  Athenians  ! This  is  pure  Sophocles.’ 

For  a few  nights  the  vivid  energy  of  Voltaire  kept  the  piece 
going.  He  was  improving  and  correcting  it  the  whole  time. 
‘Voltaire  is  a strange  man,’  said  Fontenelle.  ‘ He  composes  his 
pieces  during  their  representation.’  He  kept  the  actors  and 
actresses  to  their  work  with  a dreadful  determination.  He  was 
always  altering  and  adding  to  their  parts.  Mademoiselle  Clairon 
received  at  least  four  notes  from  him,  full  of  the  handsomest 
compliments  and  of  apologies  for  making  so  many  changes  ; but 
making  them  all  the  same.  Mademoiselle  Desmares  at  last 
totally  declined  to  have  her  lines  changed  any  more,  or  even  to 
receive  Voltaire.  So,  never  baffled,  on  a day  when  she  was 
giving  a dinner-party  he  sent  her  a pate  of  partridges — and 
behold ! each  partridge  had  a little  note  in  its  beak  containing 
emendations  to  her  role . 

If  the  story  be  true  or  not,  the  fact  remains  that  Voltaire  was 
a very  exigeant  manager.  He  had  dedicated  ‘ Oreste  ’ to  the 


198 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1750 


Duchesse  du  Maine  ; and  took  the  pains  to  write  her  a very  long 
letter  to  reproach  her  for  not  having  attended  the  first  perform- 
ance. But  in  spite  of  all  pains  ‘ Oreste  * was  hardly  a success. 
It  was  exceedingly  tragic  and  had  no  love  interest.  It  was 
revived,  after  being  withdrawn  for  a time,  which  the  author  spent 
in  rewriting  it,  and  on  its  revival  it  was  acted  nine  times.  Its 
last  performance  took  place  on  February  7,  1750. 

Voltaire's  grief  was  certainly  by  this  time  on  the  high  road  to 
a cure.  He  had  to  fight  so  hard  there  was  no  time  to  sit  at  home, 
dull  and  wretched.  He  did  not  realise  at  first  the  strength  of  his 
enemy,  Crebillon.  The  truth  is,  the  Court  was  afraid  of  the 
Voltairian  pen,  and  meant  to  stand  by  Crebillon  and  applaud  his 
dulness  to  the  echo,  only  because  he  was  Voltaire's  rival.  The 
Comedie  Fra^aise — good,  loyal  toady — must  needs  think  like  the 
King.  When  Voltaire  realised  the  nature  of  the  conflict,  he 
resolved  to  fight  the  enemy  by  a new  method  of  warfare. 

At  Christmas  1749,  Madame  Denis  had  come  to  live  with  him. 
A plump  widow  of  forty,  not  at  all  disinclined  to  try  matrimony 
again,  was  Madame  Denis  by  this  time.  She  had  attempted 
to  be  a playwright  when  Voltaire  was  at  Luneville  ; and  her 
dear  uncle  had  written  with  dreadful  plainness  of  language  to 
d’Argental  that  to  write  mediocre  plays  was  the  worst  of  careers 
for  a man  and  1 the  height  of  degradation  for  a woman.' 

Not  the  less,  he  saw  his  niece  as  a rule  through  very  kindly 
spectacles,  and  let  his  good  nature  so  far  warp  his  judgment  as 
to  make  him  think,  or  at  any  rate  say,  that  if  she  was  no  play- 
wright she  was  an  actress  of  the  highest  ability.  It  is  true  that 
she  was  very  fond  of  that  amusement,  having  a vast  appetite  for 
pleasure  of  any  kind.  At  the  beginning  of  the  year  1750  both 
she  and  her  sister,  Madame  de  Fontaine,  were  in  the  Rue 
Traversiere  ; and  Madame  Denis  was  making  a very  goodnatured, 
easy-going  hostess  for  her  uncle's  guests. 

Voltaire  had  begun  to  go  out  and  about  again,  too.  It  was  at 
some  very  inferior  amateur  theatricals  one  night  that  he  discovered 
an  uncommonly  good  amateur  actor  : sent  for  him,  and  received 
the  trembling  and  delighted  youth  the  next  morning.  He 
embraced  him,  and  thanked  God  for  having  created  a person  who 
could  be  moved,  and  moving,  even  in  speaking  such  uncommonly 
bad  verses.  The  pair  drank  chocolate  together,  mixed  with  coffee. 


Mt.  56]  PARIS,  4 ORESTE  ' AND  ‘ ROME  SAUVEE  ’ 


199 


Lekain — that  was  the  youth’s  obscure  name — announced  his 
intention  of  joining  the  King’s  troupe.  Voltaire  offered  to  lend 
him  ten  thousand  francs  to  start  on  his  own  account.  Even- 
tually, he  received  the  young  actor  and  his  company  into  his 
house,  and  paid  all  his  expenses  for  six  months — ‘and  since 
I have  belonged  to  the  stage  I can  prove  that  he  has  given  me 
more  than  two  thousand  crowns,’  says  the  famous  Lekain  in  his 
‘ Memoirs.’ 

There  was  plenty  of  space  in  the  house  in  the  Rue  Traversiere 
now  the  Marquis  du  Chatelet  no  longer  shared  it.  Voltaire 
turned  the  second  floor  into  a theatre  capable  of  holding 
a hundred  and  twenty  persons,  and  in  a very  short  time  had 
there  a playhouse,  players,  and  plays  which  were  the  height  of 
the  mode  and  made  Court  and  Comedie,  with  all  their  hopes 
pinned  on  poor  old  Crebillon  of  seventy-six,  green  with  jealousy. 

The  Voltairian  amateurs  began  with  ‘ Mahomet.’  There 
were  only  half-a-dozen  intimates,  and  a few  of  the  servants,  as 
spectators.  Lekain  was  in  the  title  role , and  the  heroine  was 
played  by  a shy  little  girl  of  fifteen,  who — thanks,  partly  at 
least,  to  the  energetic  coaching  of  M.  de  Voltaire — became 
a pleasing  actress.  Actors  and  audience  all  stayed  to  supper ; 
and,  after  it,  M.  de  Voltaire  produced  the  parts  of  ‘Rome 
Sauvee,’  distributed  them,  and  begged  the  actors  to  learn  them 
as  soon  as  they  could.  He  coached  and  rehearsed  his  company 
himself.  He  superintended  the  scenery.  He  saw  personally  to 
the  smallest  details.  Nothing  was  too  much  trouble  if  Voltaire 
could  but  outvie  Crebillon,  and  ‘ Rome  Sauvee  ’ ‘ Catilina.’  The 
audacious  playwright  actually  had  the  coolness  to  make  Richelieu 
get  him  the  loan  of  the  gorgeous  costumes  in  which  ‘ Catilina  ’ 
had  been  played  at  the  Comedie. 

‘ Rome  Sauvee  ’ appeared  on  the  boards  of  the  theatre  of  the 
Rue  Traversiere  before  an  audience  composed  almost  exclusively 
of  the  greatest  literary  men  of  the  age  and  country.  Here  were 
d’Alembert,  the  prince  of  mathematicians,  and,  to  be,  perpetual 
secretary  of  the  Academy ; Henault,  President  of  the  Chambre 
des  Enquetes,  and  of  at  least  two  of  the  most  famous  salons  in 
Paris ; young  Marmontel,  rising  in  the  world ; Diderot,  the 
encyclopaedist  of  unclean  lips ; gallant  and  accommodating 
friend  Richelieu ; and  schoolmaster  d’ Olivet.  The  performance 


200  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1750 

was  a brilliant  success.  ‘Rome  Sauv6e’  was  worthy  of  its 
author. 

At  a second  representation  that  untiring  person  himself 
played  the  part  of  Cicero,  and  excited  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
audience. 

The  fame  and  ability  of  the  troupe  of  the  Rue  Traversiere 
reached  the  ears  of  Court  and  Com^die  of  course.  They  had 
players  as  good  ; but  where  were  they  to  find  such  plays  ? 

One  of  the  aims  of  the  performance  of  ‘ Rome  Sauvee  ’ in 
the  Rue  Traversiere  was  attained  when  on  February  28,  ‘ after 
long  hesitations/  that  shifty  Pompadour — a little  bit  to  oblige 
Voltaire  and  chiefly  because  no  other  play  so  suitable  could 
be  found — had  ‘ Alzire  ’ acted  by  a distinguished  company  of 
amateurs  in  the  royal  apartments. 

Madame  de  Pompadour  herself  played  ‘ Alzire.'  The  Queen 
was  not  present ; nor  her  daughters  ; nor  the  Dauphin  ; nor  the 
playwright  himself. 

But  on  March  6 ‘ Alzire  ’ was  repeated  : with  Voltaire  in  the 
audience.  The  King  was  well  pleased  with  ‘ Alzire,’  but  not 
with  its  author. 

When  the  play  was  over  he  said  loudly  that  he  was  astonished 
that  the  author  of  so  good  a play  as  ‘ Alzire  ’ could  also  have 
written  ‘ Oreste  ’ ; and  the  writer  of  ‘ Oreste  ’ had  to  swallow 
that  royal  rebuff  in  silence. 

It  was  in  this  same  March  of  the  year  1750  that  Voltaire 
was  stung  to  fresh  action  by  the  attacks  of  Freron,  enemy  and 
journalist,  the  tool  of  Boyer,  and  the  acknowledged  foe  of  all  the 
light  and  knowledge  in  France.  Freron  had  written  an  unsuc- 
cessful poem  on  the  victory  of  Fontenoy,  and  had  never  forgiven 
Voltaire  for  winning  where  he  had  failed.  All  the  aggressions 
seem  to  have  been  on  the  part  of  Freron.  Voltaire  was  only 
aggravatingly  successful  and  goodhumoured.  Freron  had  not 
found  it  an  easy  task  to  goad  him  to  anger.  But  he  had  done  it 
at  last.  ‘ That  worm  from  the  carcase  of  Desfontaines  ’ was 
Voltaire’s  vigorous  epithet  for  him  now.  And  when  in  this 
March  there  was  question  of  this  ‘worm’  being  made  Parisian 
correspondent  to  Frederick  the  Great — ‘to  send  him  the  new 
books  and  new  follies  of  our  country’ — Voltaire  flung  on  to 
paper  a warm  remonstrance  to  his  King  against  any  such 


Mt.  56]  PARIS,  ‘ ORESTE  ’ AND  1 ROME  SAUVEE  ’ 


201 


appointment ; and  then  recommended  in  writing  to  Darget, 
Frederick’s  friend,  the  Abbe  Raynal  for  the  post  instead.  Raynal 
was  not  appointed ; but  then  neither  was  Freron.  For  many 
years,  Freron  was  to  Voltaire  the  wasp  who  stung,  and  stung, 
and  stung  again — with  a sting  not  deadly  indeed,  but  infinitely 
annoying  and  malicious. 

The  death  of  Madame  du  Chatelet  had,  not  unnaturally,  been 
the  signal  for  King  Frederick  to  renew  his  pressing  invitations  to 
Voltaire  to  visit  him.  In  the  November  of  1749  this  most  per- 
sistent of  monarchs  and  of  men  had  written  to  reproach  his 
friend  for  making  excuses  for  not  coming.  They  must  be 
excuses  now  ! And  Voltaire  was  so  apt  in  them  ! In  December 
the  King  wrote  again.  In  the  January  of  1750,  more  persistently 
still.  In  February — well,  I will  not  press  an  immediate  visit : 
but  I will  hold  you  bound  to  come  when  the  weather  is  better 
and  Flora  has  beautified  this  climate  of  mine. 

It  was  all  very  flattering.  Voltaire  felt  it  to  be  so.  He  was 
in  the  not  uncommon  position  of  the  man  who  likes  to  be  asked 
but  does  not  want  to  go.  There  were  many  reasons  against  his 
going.  He  had  just  settled  into  his  house  in  Paris.  Niece  Denis 
had  come  to  look  after  it  for  him.  All  his  friends  lived  hard  by. 
The  feverish  events  of  the  past  year  had  made  rest  and  quiet 
peculiarly  desirable.  His  health  made  them  almost  necessary. 
Travelling  was  exceedingly  expensive.  But  if  these  were  all  good 
reasons  for  remaining  in  the  Rue  Traversiere-Saint-Honore,  there 
were  better  ones  for  leaving  it. 

Running  now  through  Paris  were  those  gay  satirical  contes 
of  his  which  ridiculed  every  vice  of  the  old  regime  and  made 
King,  Court,  and  confessor  supremely  ridiculous.  The  graceless 
old  Duchesse  du  Maine,  sitting  up  in  bed  at  three  o’clock  in  the 
morning,  had  laughed  to  hear  her  order  burlesqued  in  ‘ Zadig.’ 
But  all  her  class  had  not  her  saving  sense  of  humour.  The 
satire  was  too  keen  not  to  cut — the  portraits  too  lifelike  to  be 
unrecognised. 

If  he  had  stopped  at  1 Zadig,’  at  4 Barbouc,’  at  1 Scarmentado,’ 
there  was  no  reason  in  the  world  why  Voltaire  should  be  a popular 
member  of  the  society  he  had  chastised  with  such  whips.  And 
when  he  chastised  it  with  the  scorpions  of  that  deadly  pamphlet 
of  brief  paragraphs  called  the  ‘Voice  of  the  Sage  and  the 


202  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1750 

People,’  there  was  very  small  wonder  that  he  should  once  more 
find  Paris  getting  too  hot  to  hold  him. 

The  4 Voice  of  the  Sage  and  the  People’  is  the  voice  of  the 
man  who  could  sting  with  bald  truths  as  well  as  lively  satires. 
It  hacked  at  superstition  and  the  Mirepoix  with  a hatchet  that 
always  went  to  the  root  of  the  tree.  ‘ A government  in  which  it 
is  permitted  a certain  class  of  men  to  say  “ Let  those  pay  taxes 
who  work  : we  should  not  pay  because  we  are  idle  ” — is  no  better 
than  a government  of  Hottentots.’  ‘ A woman  who  nurses 
a couple  of  children  and  spins  does  more  for  the  State  than  all 
convents  have  ever  done.’  ‘ The  Church  ought  to  contribute  to 
the  expenses  of  the  nation  in  proportion  to  its  revenues.  . . . 
The  body  set  apart  to  teach  justice  should  begin  by  giving  an 
example  of  it.’  Forty  years  later  these  truths  were  enforced  by 
the  blood  of  the  Revolution. 

Could  Voltaire  have  thought  even  in  1750  that  they  were 
politic  truths  to  utter  in  a city  where  he  had  just  bought  a house 
and  was  much  minded  to  settle  down  and  be  at  peace  ? It  is  to 
his  infinite  and  lifelong  credit  that  he  seldom  cared  whether 
a truth  were  politic  or  no.  The  moment  he  saw  it  to  be  truth  he 
must  utter  it  in  scorn  of  consequence. 

Even  ‘ Rome  Sauvee  ’ and  ‘ Oreste  ’ could  not  shield  a man 
responsible  for  the  paternity  of  such  writing  as  this,  nor  the 
uncertain  smile  of  a Pompadour  save  him  from  its  consequences. 
Well,  he  had  better  go  ! He  had  always  wished  to  travel  in 
Italy.  He  would  take  Potsdam  and  Berlin  en  route.  His  visit 
there  could  be  brief.  On  May  8,  1750,  he  wrote  to  Frederick 
saying  that,  though  he  was  rich,  ‘ even  very  rich  for  a man  of 
letters,’  his  house  in  Paris  and  the  du  Chatelet  affairs  had  made 
him  so  short  of  money  that  he  must  beg  the  royal  permission  for 
Mettra,  an  exchange  dealer  of  Berlin,  to  advance  him  four 
thousand  crowns  for  the  expenses  of  his  proposed  journey.  The 
delighted  King  wrote  back  on  May  24  enclosing  a letter  of 
exchange  for  sixteen  thousand  francs.  He  was  willing  to  pay, 
and  to  pay  highly,  for  a man  who  was  ‘ a whole  Academy  of 
belles-lettres  in  himself.’  Voltaire  was  gratified  of  course.  But 
he  wrote  dismally  that  he  was  more  in  need  of  a doctor  than 
a king,  and  on  June  9 spoke  of  himself  to  that  King,  in  verse 
which  was  meant  to  be  gay  and  sounds  a little  dreary,  as  ‘ your 


Mt.  56]  PABIS,  4 OBESTE  ’ AND  ‘ BOME  SAUVEE  ’ 


203 


very  aged  Danae,  who  leaves  his  little  home  for  your  star- 
spangled  dwelling-place,  of  which  his  years  make  him  unworthy.’ 
A little  home  is  so  much  more  comfortable  than  a star-spangled 
dwelling-place,  after  all ! Voltaire  in  fact  needed  a spur  to  make 
him  undertake  that  long  talked-of  visit  with  alacrity.  And  he 
had  it. 

Among  the  many  other  poor  and  generally  worthless  literary 
hangers-on,  whom  the  most  generous  literary  genius  of  any  age 
had  commissioned  his  agent  Moussinot  to  assist  with  gifts  of 
money,  was  one  Baculard  d’Arnaud.  A conceited  young  writer 
of  very  fluent  rhymes  and  three,  dull,  unacted  tragedies,  was 
d’Arnaud. 

But  he  was  needy  and  a man  of  letters.  That  was  enough 
for  Voltaire.  He  procured  him  the  post  of  Paris  correspondent 
to  King  Frederick  for  which  Baynal  and  Freron  had  competed 
unsuccessfully,  and  on  April  25,  1750,  young  d’Arnaud  arrived  in 
Berlin,  with  letters  and  verses  from  Voltaire  to  the  King.  A 
personable  young  man  was  Baculard.  A gay  head,  very  easily 
turned.  Was  it  to  pique  Voltaire  that  Frederick  gave  Voltaire’s 
protege  a pension  of  five  thousand  francs  yearly,  and  compliments 
much  above  his  merits?  If  so,  that  aim  failed  at  first.  On 
May  19  Voltaire  wrote  to  young  d’Arnaud  the  kindest  of  friendly 
letters.  On  May  31  d’Arnaud  wrote  to  Voltaire  saying  that  he 
was  waiting  for  him  ‘ as  a child  awaits  his  father.’  The  father 
was  not  hurrying  himself,  it  appears. 

On  June  22,  Voltaire  and  his  company  of  clever  amateurs  were 
at  Sceaux  : and  played  ‘ Rome  Sauvee  ’ to  the  Duchesse  du  Maine 
and  her  court,  Voltaire  taking  Cicero,  and  Lekain,  Lentulus  Sura. 

On  June  28,  Colle,  writer  of  memoirs,  meets  Theriot,  that  idle 
gossip  of  a Theriot,  who  tells  Colle  a most  piquant , incredible 
story  about  the  great  Frederick  and  little  Baculard  d’Arnaud. 
Then  friend  Marmontel,  also  writer  of  memoirs  (and  of  memoirs 
written,  it  must  be  remembered,  many  years  after  the  events  they 
chronicle),  tells  how  he  and  Theriot  went  to  see  Voltaire  together 
one  morning  and  found  him  writing  in  bed  as  usual.  Theriot 
played  the  part  of  candid  friend.  ‘ I have  news  to  tell  you,’ 
says  he.  ‘ Well,  what  is  it  ? ’ asks  the  writer  in  bed.  1 D’Arnaud 
has  arrived  at  Potsdam  and  the  King  has  received  him  with  open 
arms.’  1 With  open  arms  ? ’ says  Voltaire.  ‘ And  that  d’Arnaud 


204 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1750 


has  written  him  an  Epistle.’  ‘ Dull  and  bombastic,  I suppose  ? 9 
1 On  the  contrary,  very  good,  and  so  good  the  King  has  replied  by 
another  Epistle  ! ’ ‘ What ! the  King  of  Prussia  an  Epistle  to 

d’Arnaud  ? ’ says  the  person  in  bed,  roused  a little.  6 Someone 
has  been  gaming  you,  Theriot.’  But  Theriot  produces  copies  of 
the  two  Epistles  from  his  pockets.  Voltaire  stretches  out  a lean 
hand,  seizes  and  reads  them.  ‘ What  rubbish  ! What  platitudes  ! ’ 
says  he,  reading  d’Arnaud’s  verses  to  Frederick.  But  Frederick 
had  not  thought  so.  Then  he  comes  to  Frederick’s  verses  to 
d’Arnaud,  and  reads  ‘ for  a moment  in  silence  and  with  an  air 
of  pity.’ 

D’Arnaud,  by  your  genius  fair 
You  will  warm  our  bleak  North  air ; 

And  the  music  of  your  lyre 
Kindle  quick  my  muse’s  fire — 

and  so  on  ; and  so  on.  Not  much  in  that,  to  be  sure.  But  when 
he  came  to  the  last  verse — 

The  French  Apollo  ’gins  to  die 
And  his  term  of  fame  is  nigh. 

Come  then,  you,  and  take  his  place, 

Rise  and  shine  : outgrace  his  grace. 

The  sunset  of  a gorgeous  day 
A finer  sunrise  brings  alway — 

he  sprang  out  of  bed  as  if  he  had  been  stung  and  danced  about 
the  room  in  a fury.  ‘ I will  go  ! I will  go  ! ’ he  cried,  ‘ if  only 
to  teach  him  to  know  mankind  ! ’ 

That  ‘ sunset  ’ had  accomplished  Frederick’s  purpose.  Perhaps 
he  had  guessed  it  would.  He  was  certainly  too  astute  to  really 
think  that  a d’Arnaud’s  twinkle  would  show  at  all  in  a sky  where 
the  sun  of  a Voltaire’s  genius  beamed  and  burnt. 

‘ To  sit  high  is  to  be  lied  about.’  Many  of  Marmontel’s  ‘ facts  ’ 
are  conspicuously  inaccurate.  But  if  this  story  be  true — and 
having  regard  to  Voltaire’s  character  it  sounds  at  least  as  if  it  had 
truth  in  it — no  doubt  remains  that  he  was  quite  clever  enough  to 
disguise  his  anger.  A gay  little  versified  reproach  to  Frederick 
dated  June  26,  1750 — that  was  all.  The  very  reproach  was 
written  from  Compiegne,  whither  the  Gentleman-in-Ordinary  had 
gone  to  beg  the  permission  of  Louis  XV.  to  visit  Frederick  II. 
Frederick  was  to  pay  all  expenses  of  the  journey.  Voltaire  would 


Mi.  56]  PARIS,  * ORESTE  ’ AND  4 ROME  SAUVEE  ’ 


205 


put  the  cachet  of  genius  on  the  King’s  prose  and  verse  which  just 
missing  that,  just  missed  everything.  He  left  his  house  in  the 
Rue  Saint-Honore  in  the  joint  care  of  Longchamp  and  Madame 
Denis,  giving  the  latter  a handsome  income  for  its  maintenance. 
He  apologised  to  his  friends  for  leaving  them. 

And  on  June  26  the  ‘domestique’  of  the  King,  as  he  called 
himself,  was  at  Compiegne,  as  has  been  seen,  taking  leave  of  his 
master.  The  farewell  was  hardly  a success.  Louis  wanted  the 
dangerous  Voltaire  gone,  and  was  offended  at  his  going.  What 
room  was  there  in  France  for  the  author  of  those  shameless  contes 
and  that  loud  passionate  ‘ Voice  of  the  Sage  and  the  People’? 
None.  That  ‘ Voice’  had  been  the  sensation  of  the  year  among 
the  orthodox.  A hundred  ‘ Voices  ’ had  been  raised  to  answer  it 
— in  parody,  in  refutation,  in  agreement.  Even  Madame  de 
Pompadour  was  offended — this  clever  Voltaire  had  whispered  in 
her  ear  too  apt  and  impudent  a couplet.  True,  when  he  took 
farewell  of  her,  she  smiled  on  him  a little  and  sent  her  kind 
regards  to  King  Frederick.  When  Voltaire  gave  the  message, 
that  astute  boor  of  a monarch  curtly  observed,  ‘ I do  not  know 
her  ’ — and  the  artful  Voltaire  wrote  the  Pompadour  some  very 
pretty  verses  to  tell  her  that  he  had  the  honour  to  give  Venus  the 
thanks  of  Achilles  ! 

As  for  his  French  Majesty,  when  Voltaire  begged  permission 
to  visit  the  Prussian,  he  turned  his  back  on  the  greatest  man  in 
his  kingdom  and  said  indifferently,  ‘ You  can  go  when  you  like.’ 

Even  now,  a word  would  have  detained  Voltaire.  But  that 
word  was  far  from  being  spoken.  After  he  was  gone,  there  arose 
at  Court  one  day  some  question  of  the  royal  treatment  of  this 
child  of  genius.  ‘ After  all,’  said  Louis,  ‘ I have  treated  him  as 
well  as  Louis  XIV.  treated  Racine  and  Boileau.  ...  It  is  not  my 
fault  if  he  aspires  to  sup  with  a king ; ’ and  proceeded  to  add  that  if 
he  had  been  too  goodnatured  to  talent  ‘ all  that  ’ — which  included 
d’Alembert,  Fontenelle,  Maupertuis,  Montesquieu,  Prevost — 

‘ would  have  dined  or  supped  with  me.’  Comment  is  needless. 

Voltaire  left  France  with  Boyer  keeping  the  conscience  of 
King  and  Dauphin ; and  keeping  from  the  people  light,  know- 
ledge, and  advancement.  The  dues  of  Mirepoix  were  the  sworn 
enemies,  not  of  Voltaire  alone,  but  of  all  his  friends,  of  all  the 
intellect  of  France.  Freron,  that  4 worm  from  the  carcase  of 


206 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1760 


Desfontaines,’  was  their  tongue  and  pen.  They  were  busy  now 
refusing  the  Sacrament  to  dying  Jansenists  who  could  not  pro- 
duce a certificate  to  show  they  had  accepted  the  Bull  Unigenitus. 
Voltaire  could  not  resist  a parting  shaft  at  them.  Two  little 
pamphlets,  gently  satirical  and  both  directed  against  the  clergy, 
were  the  final  bolts  which  shut  the  gates  of  Paris  upon  him  for 
eight-and-twenty  years.  In  the  belief  that  he  was  leaving  it  for 
a very  few  months  at  the  most,  he  set  out  from  Compiegne  on  a day 
towards  the  end  of  June  ; but  precisely  what  day  is  not  certain. 
On  July  2 he  was  at  Cleves.  On  July  10,  1750,  he  arrived  at 
the  palace  of  King  Frederick  the  Great,  at  Potsdam. 


Mt.  56] 


207 


CHAPTER  XXI 

GLAMOUR 

Clean,  quiet  Potsdam  stands  on  the  river  Havel  and  is  sixteen 
miles  from  Berlin.  In  1745  the  great  Frederick  had  begun  to 
build  there  the  little,  white,  one-storied  palace  called  Sans-Souci. 
He  desired  to  be  buried  at  the  foot  of  a statue  of  Flora  on  one  of 
its  terraces — ‘ when  I am  there  I shall  be  sans  souci.’ 

The  French  tastes  of  the  royal  architect  are  everywhere 
evident.  Sans-Souci  is  a kind  of  miniature  Versailles.  It  stands 
on  a hill.  Formal  terraces  slope  to  a formal  park.  Here  are 
statues,  and  a fountain — all  the  artificial  and  no  natural  beauties. 
Within  the  palace  may  still  be  seen,  almost  unaltered,  the  rooms 
where  the  great  King  lived  and  died — his  chair,  his  clock,  his 
portrait.  In  the  picture  gallery  he  walked  and  talked  with 
Voltaire.  And  in  the  west  wing  is  the  room  occupied  by  that 
favoured  guest,  and  before  him  by  the  Marechal  de  Saxe. 

Voltaire  arrived  then  at  Sans-Souci  on  July  10,  after  a journey 
which  cost  thrifty  Frederick  600Z.,  and  during  which  the  traveller 
had  visited  the  famous  battlefields  of  Fontenoy,  Raucoux,  and 
Lawfeld. 

It  was  ten  years  since  Voltaire  had  escaped  from  his  Madame 
du  Chatelet  to  first  see  in  the  flesh  the  hero  of  his  dreams.  It 
was  fourteen  years  since  the  pair  had  first  exchanged  adoring 
letters.  Their  friendship  was  of  European  fame.  They  were 
the  two  greatest  men  of  their  age.  Half  the  world  watched  their 
meeting  : and  awaited  results. 

The  pair  fell  metaphorically,  and  perhaps  literally  too,  into 
each  other’s  arms.  This  day  had  been  so  long  delayed.  The 
host  had  worked  for  it  so  persistently,  doggedly,  and  consistently ! 
The  visitor  had  so  warmly  wanted  it  when  it  had  been  wholly 
impossible — and  when  it  was  inevitable  had  done  his  best  to 
recall  that  early  enthusiasm. 


208 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1750 


The  enthusiasm  may  well  have  come  back  to  him  now.  It 
did  come  back.  Instead  of  sulky  Louis’  cold  shoulder,  was  ‘ my 
Frederick  the  Great,’  flattery,  honour,  and  consideration.  Potsdam 
was  gay  and  busy  with  preparations  for  a splendid  fete  to  be  held 
in  Berlin  in  August.  But  it  forgot  gaiety  and  business  alike  to 
do  honour  to  Voltaire. 

Saxe’s  apartments  left  nothing  to  be  desired.  The  royal 
stables  were  at  the  guest’s  disposal.  There  were  music  and 
conversation.  On  July  24  the  guest  sketched  Potsdam  for 
d’Argental — ‘ one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  soldiers  . . . opera, 
comedy,  philosophy,  poetry,  grandeur  and  graces,  grenadiers  and 
muses,  trumpets  and  violins,  the  suppers  of  Plato,  society  and 
liberty — who  would  believe  it  ? Yet  it  is  very  true.* 

And  on  August  1 to  Thibouville,  ‘ To  find  all  the  charms  of 
society  in  a king  who  has  won  five  battles ; to  be  in  the  midst 
of  drums  and  to  hear  the  lyre  of  Apollo ; ...  to  pass  one’s  days 
half  in  fetes,  half  in  the  delights  of  a quiet  and  occupied  life  ’ — 
here  was  glamour  indeed. 

And  then  on  a day  before  August  14,  and  before  Voltaire  had 
been  five  weeks  at  Potsdam,  Frederick,  who  perfectly  understood 
the  policy  of  striking  while  the  iron  is  hot,  offered  his  dearest 
friend,  if  he  would  but  stay  with  him  for  ever,  the  post  of 
Chamberlain,  a Royal  Order,  twenty  thousand  francs  per  annum, 
and  niece  Denis  a yearly  pension  of  four  thousand  francs  if  she 
would  come  and  keep  her  uncle’s  house  in  Berlin. 

The  offer  was  so  sudden  and  so  brilliant ! That  impetuosity 
which  had  made  all  his  shrewdness  of  none  avail  a hundred  times 
before,  was  still  at  once  Voltaire’s  charm  and  stumbling-block. 
He  forgot  ‘ Anti-Machiavelli  ’ and  d’Arnaud.  Everything  that 
makes  life  delightful  surrounded  him  at  the  moment.  Behind 
him  lay  the  Bastille  of  his  youth,  flight  to  Holland,  hiding  at 
Cirey,  the  ‘ English  Letters  ’ burnt  by  the  hangman,  the  fierce 
persecution  for  that  babbling  trifle  the  ‘Mondain,’ the  Pompa- 
dour’s false  smile,  the  kingly  scowl,  Crebillon,  Desfontaines, 
Boyer.  At  its  best  his  country  had  given  him  grudging 
and  empty  honours.  If  he  had  won  fame  and  fortune,  it  had 
been  in  spite  of  Courtly  malice  and  for  ever  at  the  point  of 
the  sword.  He  was  sick  to  the  soul  of  gagging  and  injustice. 
It  was  [not  the  least  part  of  his  bitterness  against  his  Louis, 


FREDERICK  THE  GREAT. 

From  an  Engraving  by  Cunejo,  after  the  Painting  by  Cunningham . 


JEt.  56] 


GLAMOUR 


209 


that  he  had  cringed  to  and  flattered  such  a creature — in  vain. 
He  was  fifty-six  years  old.  The  fifty-six  years  had  been  one 
long  persecution.  He  had  still  the  daring  spirit  of  a boy.  He 
had  still  such  deeds  to  do  that  the  gods  would  make  him 
immortal,  if  need  be,  to  do  them.  A new  heaven  and  a new 
earth  lay  before  him.  He  accepted  the  offer — and  began  the 
world  again. 

There  is  still  preserved  his  letter  to  Madame  Denis,  dated 
August  14,  1750,  wherein  he  tells  her  of  Frederick’s  bounty.  It 
has  the  spontaneous  enthusiasm  of  youth.  ‘You  must  come, 
niece  Louise,’  it  says  in  effect.  ‘ Think  of  the  magnificence  of 
the  offer  ! And  then — Berlin  has  such  operas  ! ’ (shrewd  Uncle 
Voltaire !)  He  had  hardly  been  given  time  to  breathe,  much  less 
to  think,  since  he  arrived  at  Potsdam.  Pleasure  had  succeeded 
to  pleasure  and  flattery  to  flattery.  For  three  hours  at  a time  he 
would  criticise  his  royal  host’s  writings.  Crafty  Frederick  gave 
up  whole  days  to  belles-lettres . There  was  everything  to  intoxi- 
cate the  excitable  brain  of  this  French  child  of  genius.  The 
great  Frederick  was  cool  enough.  He  had  no  glamour.  Does  it 
make  the  great  Voltaire  less  lovable  that  he  saw  things  all  en  rose 
or  en  noir , was  led  dangerous  lengths  by  his  emotions,  and  for  all 
that  rasping  cynicism  could  be  a dreamer  of  dreams,  a visionary, 
and  a sentimentalist  ? 

Practical  niece  Denis,  with  her  vulgar,  shrewd  instincts,  wrote 
back  and  said  that  no  man  could  be  the  friend  of  a king.  Toady 
or  slave — but  friend,  never.  And  Voltaire,  carried  to  Berlin  in 
the  whirl  of  the  Court  for  the  Carrousel,  wrote  to  d’Argental 
begging  him  to  persuade  her,  and  asking  d’Argental’s  forgiveness 
for  the  course  upon  which  he  was  resolved. 

On  August  28.  Frederick,  having  read  Madame  Denis’s  letter, 
condescended  to  write  with  his  own  royal  hand  from  his  private 
apartment  to  beg  Voltaire  to  stay  with  him.  What  more  flatter- 
ing ? Yet  even  now  Voltaire  was  not  quite  sure  he  was  wise. 
He  took  such  immense  pains  to  prove  himself  so.  But  he  had 
decided  irrevocably — and  flung  the  responsibility  of  that  choice 
on  destiny  at  last.  ‘ I abandon  myself  to  my  fate,’  he  wrote 
on  August  28,  ‘and  throw  myself  head  foremost  into  that 
abyss.’ 

The  fall  was  soft  enough  at  first. 

v 


210 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1750 


The  Carrousel  had  begun  about  August  8. 

Berlin  was  crowded  with  noble  and  distinguished  guests  from 
all  lands.  Frederick  rode  about  the  city  on  horseback, 'personally 
supervising  the  preparations  for  the  fete . Red  of  face,  portly  of 
figure,  eight-and-thirty  years  old  and  much  addicted  to  snuff — 
one  of  his  English  guests  thus  described  him,  not  ungraphically. 
With  his  five  great  battles  behind  him  and  such  a future  before 
him  as  might  well  surpass  the  wildest  flights  of  fancy,  he  was  a 
great  man  to  call  4 friend.’ 

And  in  Berlin,  among  the  notables  of  all  Europe  convened  to 
celebrate  a Carrousel  which  should  make  Louis  XIV. ’s  famous 
fete  of  the  Tuileries  dull  and  obscure,  the  great  Voltaire  was  only 
less  honoured  than  the  great  Frederick  himself.  He  may  be 
forgiven  for  thinking  he  had  chosen  well. 

Among  the  guests  was  the  Margravine  of  Bayreuth,  Frederick’s 
sister,  and  very  much  Voltaire’s  friend.  In  1743  he  had  spent 
ten  days  with  her  at  Bayreuth.  French  plays  were  acted — but, 
strangely  enough,  no  plays  by  M.  Arouet  de  Voltaire.  He  was  a 
spectator  on  the  occasion.  He  had  said  truly  of  himself  that  he 
loved  good  verses  so  much  that  he  loved  other  people’s — ‘ which 
is  a great  deal  for  a poet.’  On  August  17  the  French  players 
acted  the  ‘Mauvais  Riche’  of  his  vain  little  rival,  Baculard 
d’Arnaud.  But  Voltaire  was  in  the  mood  when  he  was  ready  to 
be  pleased  with  anything.  On  August  26  was  played  the 
‘ Iphigenie  ’ of  Racine,  and  on  the  27th  the  ‘ Medecin  Malgre  Lui.’ 

‘ The  language  least  talked  at  Court  was  German,’  said  Voltaire. 
‘Our  tongue  and  literature  have  made  more  conquests  than 
Charlemagne.’  He  wrote  delightedly  of  the  King’s  brother  and 
sister,  Henry  and  Amelia,  as  the  most  charming  reciters  of 
French  verse.  His  spectacles  were  rose-coloured  indeed. 

August  25  was  the  crowning  point  of  the  fete , one  of  those 
splended  revelries  which  were  the  boast  of  the  old  regime — and 
died  with  it.  The  Carrousel  of  the  Sun  King  had  been  glorious. 
The  Berlin  Carrousel  far  outvied  it.  It  was,  too,  one  of  the  golden 
nights  of  Voltaire’s  life,  and  lives  in  history  for  that  reason. 

The  courtyard  of  the  great  palace  in  Berlin  had  been  turned 
into  an  amphitheatre.  Three  thousand  soldiers  under  arms  lined 
the  approaches  to  the  place.  Forty-six  thousand  lights  illuminated 
it.  Tier  above  tier,  brilliantly  apparelled,  blazing  with  jewels, 


Ml.  56] 


GLAMOUR 


211 


the  nobility  of  all  lands,  sat  the  spectators.  Among  them  were 
Lord  Melton  and  Jonas  Han  way — ‘a  chiel  among  yon,  takin  ’ 
notes  ’ — and  Collini,  a young  Florentine.  Save  only  the  royal 
box,  every  seat  was  occupied.  The  hush  of  expectation  was  on 
the  audience.  And  then,  on  a sudden,  gorgeous  in  dress,  as  that 
period  alone  knew  how  to  be  gorgeous,  4 among  a group  of  great 
lords/  a lean  figure  moved  towards  the  King’s  enclosure.  For 
an  instant  the  house  was  silent.  And  then  there  swept  through 
it  a murmur  like  the  wind  among  the  trees — 4 Voltaire ! ’ 
4 Voltaire ! ’ 

It  was  a moment  worth  life  and  worth  death.  A stranger 
and  foreigner  raised  by  genius  alone  to  that  mighty  eminence  of 
fame  to  which  genius,  a proud  line  of  royal  ancestors,  and  five 
great  battles  had  raised  Frederick  the  King  ! Every  eye  was 
upon  this  son  of  a notary,  this  Paris  bourgeois , Voltaire.  Collini 
noticed  the  delight  in  the  piercing  eyes,  and  a certain  modesty  of 
demeanour  very  pleasing.  Voltaire  had  chosen  rightly  after  all ! 
There  could  have  been  no  doubt  in  his  impressionable  mind  at 
that  magnificent  minute. 

Then  in  the  arena  the  tournament  began.  Voltaire  described 
it  as  fairyland,  the  fete  of  Chinese  lanterns,  and  the  Carrousel  of 
Louis  the  Magnificent,  all  in  one.  The  competitors  in  the  fray 
were  royal,  and  a princess — Venus  and  the  apple — gave  away  the 
prizes.  After  the  tournament  was  a supper,  and  after  the  supper 
a ball.  Voltaire  did  not  go  to  that.  He  was  surfeited  with 
delight — las  with  adulation.  He  had  already  written  of  his 
great  host  that  he  scratched  with  one  hand  and  caressed  with 
the  other.  To-night  it  had  been  all  caresses.  And  would  surely 
be  caresses  for  ever ! 4 When  a clever  man  commits  a folly,  it 

is  not  a small  one.’ 

The  plan  as  now  formed  was  that  Voltaire,  with  Prussia  as 
home,  should  travel  in  Italy  in  this  autumn  of  1750  and  so 
gratify  a desire  of  years,  and  that  in  the  spring  of  1751  Madame 
Denis  should  join  him  in  Berlin.  In  the  meantime,  Prussia  was 
heaven. 

On  September  12  he  wrote  again  to  his  niece  earnestly  trying 
to  persuade  her  of  its  charms.  And  would  have  succeeded  very 
likely  if  she  had  not  had  particular  reasons  of  her  own  at  the 
time  for  preferring  Paris. 


212 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1750 


Even  at  Berlin  and  during  a Carrousel  Voltaire  had  entire 
liberty.  Or  at  least  as  much  liberty  as  fame  and  distinctions 
allow  any  man.  His  days  were  his  own.  In  the  morning  he 
studied  Ho  the  sound  of  the  drum.*  In  the  evening  queens  asked 
him  to  supper,  he  said,  and  were  not  offended  when  he  denied 
them.  He  spent  hours  correcting  Frederick’s  works,  and 
observed  gallantly  1 Caesar  supra  grammaticam  ’ to  excuse  the 
noble  pupil’s  defects  in  that  department.  He  gave  up  the  kingly 
dinners  presently — there  were  too  many  generals  and  princes, 
forsooth,  for  this  M.  de  Voltaire. 

On  September  14  ‘ Rome  Sauvee  ’ was  played  in  the  rooms  of 
the  Princess  Amelia  at  Berlin  and  on  a stage  especially  erected 
by  its  author,  who  took  the  part  of  Cicero  as  he  had  done  at 
Sceaux  and  in  the  Rue  Traversiere.  He  also  trained  the  com- 
pany and  lost  his  temper  with  them,  exactly  as  he  had  lost  it 
with  his  troupe  in  Paris.  When  the  tumult  of  fetes  was  past  the 
Court  went  back  to  Potsdam.  Life  was  a thousand  times  more 
delightful  than  ever.  ‘ I have  my  whole  time  to  myself,  1 am 
crossed  in  nothing.’  ‘ I find  a port  after  thirty  years  of  storm. 
I find  the  protection  of  a king,  the  conversation  of  a philosopher, 
the  charms  of  an  agreeable  man  united  in  one  who  for  sixteen 
years  consoled  me  in  misfortune  and  sheltered  me  from  my 
enemies.  ...  If  one  can  be  certain  of  anything  it  is  of  the 
character  of  the  King  of  Prussia.’  ‘ I have  the  audacity  to  think 
that  nature  has  made  me  for  him.  I have  found  so  singular  a 
likeness  between  his  tastes  and  mine  that  I have  forgotten  he  is 
the  ruler  of  half  Germany  and  the  other  half  trembles  at  his 
name.  . . ‘ The  conqueror  of  Austria  loves  belles-lettres,  which 

I love  with  all  my  heart.’  ‘ My  marriage  is  accomplished  then. 
Will  it  be  happy?  I do  not  know.  I cannot  help  myself  saying 
“ Yes.”  One  had  to  finish  by  marriage  after  coquetting  for  so 
many  years.’ 

Even  the  d’Arnaud  affair  ‘ does  not  prevent  the  King  of 
Prussia  from  being  the  most  amiable  and  remarkable  of  men.’ 
Nay,  d’Arnaud  himself  was  ‘bon  diable’  after  all.  And  the 
Prussian  climate  so  rigorous  ? Not  a bit  of  it.  What  are  a few 
rays  of  sunshine  more  or  less  to  make  us  give  ourselves  such 
airs  ? The  glamour  was  complete. 

All  the  letters  from  which  these  extracts  are  taken  were 


/Et.  56] 


GLAMOUR 


213 


written  less  than  four  months  after  Voltaire’s  arrival  in  Prussia, 
and  when  the  contrast  between  his  treatment  there,  and  the 
treatment  meted  to  him  in  France,  was  fresh  and  glaring.  All 
the  letters  were  written  to  persons  who  only  half  approved,  or 
wholly  disapproved,  of  what  Lord  Chesterfield  called  Voltaire’s 
4 emigration.’ 

His  friends,  enemies,  and  niece  were  all  united  in  fearing  and 
disliking  it.  In  Paris  a caricature  was  being  sold  in  the  street : 

4 Voltaire  the  famous  Prussian ! Look  at  him  with  his  great 
bearskin  bonnet  to  keep  out  the  cold  ! Six  sous  for  Voltaire  the 
famous  Prussian ! ’ 

At  the  French  Court  the  offended  attitude  of  King  Louis  had 
not  changed.  King  Frederick  wrote  very  civilly  to  borrow  the 
great  Voltaire  from  his  brother  of  France.  And  his  brother  of 
France,  says  d’Argenson,  replied  he  should  be  very  glad  to  make 
the  loan,  and  turning  to  his  courtiers,  added  that  there  would  be 
one  fool  more  at  the  Court  of  the  King  of  Prussia  4 and  one  fool 
less  at  mine.’ 

On  October  27,  Voltaire  wrote  to  tell  the  d’Argentals  that 
his  post  of  Historiographer  had  been  taken  away  from  him  ; 
though  Madame  de  Pompadour  had  told  him,  in  a little  note,  that 
King  Louis  had  had  the  goodness  to  allow  him  to  keep  an  old 
pension  of  two  thousand  livres. 

4 1 do  not  know  why  the  King  should  deprive  me  of  the 
Historiographership  and  let  me  retain  the  title  of  his  Gentleman- 
in-Ordinary,’  Voltaire  wrote  rather  disgustedly  to  Madame  Denis 
on  October  28.  But  after  all,  what  did  it  matter  ? In  return  for 
the  Historiographership  he  had  the  post  of  Chamberlain  to  the 
King  of  Prussia,  that  Royal  Prussian  Order,  and  that  yearly 
Prussian  pension. 

He  had  exchanged  strife  for  peace ; slights  for  honour ; and 
Louis  XV.  for  Frederick  the  Great.  How  could  he  be  wrong  ? 

It  is  always  far  harder  to  guess  the  mind  of  Frederick  on  any 
given  occasion  than  the  mind  of  Voltaire.  Frederick  at  least  was 
sure  that  Voltaire  was  worth  keeping  even  at  a heavy  price  to  be 
4 the  glory  of  one’s  own  Court  and  the  envy  of  the  world.’  Gay, 
witty,  and  easy — a past  master  of  the  art  of  conversation — and 
with  an  impulsive  susceptibility  to  the  impressions  of  the 
moment  wholly  fascinating — the  King  was  not  wrong  in  placing 


214 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1750 


a high  estimate  on  the  companionship  of  Voltaire.  The  King 
knew  genius  when  he  saw  it.  He  meant  to  keep  it  now  he  had 
it.  So,  after  a day  spent  in  the  ardours  of  government  and 
military  duty,  at  five  he  became  the  verse-maker,  the  man  of 
ease  and  letters,  the  polished  Frenchman  instead  of  the  great 
German  soldier. 

At  seven,  he  had  his  evening  concert,  small,  select,  delightful. 
‘ If  you  think  the  King  loves  music,’  said  someone,  £ you  are 
wrong.  He  loves  only  the  flute  and  only  his  own  flute/  (To 
be  sure,  such  an  egoism  has  been  known  as  a love  of  music  both 
before  and  since.)  No  women  were  admitted.  Frederick  the 
Great’s  dislike  of  that  sex  is  historical,  and  was  always  consistent 
and  unmoved.  And  then,  at  nine  o’clock  began  those  immortal 
suppers  of  the  gods.  Voltaire  was  of  course  of  them  from  the 
earliest  days  of  his  stay  in  Prussia. 

Half  Europe  watched  them  from  afar.  Much  more  than 
half  the  genius  of  Europe  would  have  paid  a high  price  to 
have  been  of  them.  They  generally  consisted  of  about  ten 
persons.  The  only  language  spoken  was  French,  and  more  than 
half  the  habitues  were  of  that  favoured  nation.  The  other  half 
included  two  Scotchmen,  one  Prussian,  and  that  great  Prussian- 
Frenchman,  Frederick  himself.  Baculard  d’Arnaud,  though 
living  at  Potsdam  and  under  the  immediate  eye  and  favour  of  the 
King,  was  not  invited.  The  meal  was  severely  sober  and  frugal. 
The  King  rose  at  twelve,  as  clear-headed  as  he  had  sat  down. 
Sometimes  his  guests  prolonged  that  feast  of  reason  far  into  the 
morning.  The  servants  who  waited  on  them  contracted,  it  is 
said,  swellings  in  the  legs  from  too  much  standing.  Occasionally, 
Frederick  was  not  of  the  party  at  all.  He  supped  with  Colonel 
Balby  instead.  ‘ What  is  the  King  doing  this  evening  ? ’ it  was 
asked  of  Voltaire.  ‘ II  balbutie  ’ was  the  ready  answer. 

Great  among  the  convives  of  the  supper  was  Maupertuis,  the 
pompous  and  touchy  geometrician,  the  President  of  the  Berlin 
Academy,  and  once  the  friend  and  the  tutor  of  Madame  du  Chatelet. 
He  had  stayed  at  Cirey  in  1739.  Voltaire  had  never  liked  any- 
thing about  him  but  his  talents.  Surly,  solemn,  and  unsociable, 
he  was  already  antipathetic  in  every  attribute  of  his  character  to 
the  brilliant  Frenchman. 

Another  visitor  of  Cirey,  was  also  of  the  suppers — Algarotti, 


Mt.  56] 


GLAMOUR 


215 


the  amiable  Italian,  the  agreeable  man  of  the  world,  the  ‘ Swan  of 
Padua,’  whose  ‘ Newtonianism  for  Ladies  ’ Emilie’s  Newton  had 
so  completely  eclipsed. 

Here  too  was  La  Mettrie,  a freethinking  French  doctor  of 
medicine,  with  his  ribald,  rollicking  stories  and  his  bold  atheism, 
‘ the  most  frank  and  the  most  foolish  of  men.’  He  had  become 
notorious  as  the  author  of  a book  called  ‘ The  Man  Machine  ’ in 
which  he  had  gaily  proved,  to  his  own  satisfaction,  the  material 
nature  of  the  soul. 

Then  there  was  ‘ the  brave  Major  Chasot,’  an  excellent  type  of 
a gallant  eighteenth-century  French  gentleman.  He  had  saved 
the  King’s  life  at  the  battle  of  Mollwitz,  but  owed  the  coveted 
entree  to  the  suppers  less  to  that  heroism  than  to  the  facts  that 
he  was  French  and  flute-player. 

Here  too  was  d’Argens,  a profligate  French  marquis,  whom 
Frederick  loved  for  ‘ his  wit,  his  learning,  and  his  person  ’ ; and 
who  was  at  once  credulous  and  sceptical,  free  thinking  and 
superstitious. 

The  other  Frenchman  was  Darget,  reader,  confidant,  and 
secretary  to  the  royal  host,  very  discreet,  reserved,  and  judicious, 
a man  to  be  trusted.  It  did  not  take  a subtle  Voltaire  long  to 
recognise  the  value  of  the  friendship  of  this  friend  of  the  King. 
Frederick  often  wrote  to  Voltaire  through  Darget,  and  Voltaire 
replied  to  Darget  in  terms  of  tenderness  and  admiration. 

Then  there  was  the  French  ambassador  of  Irish  birth — Lord 
Tyrconnel — famous  for  giving  heavy  dinners,  whose  role  ‘ was  to 
be  always  at  table,’  and  who  had  the  brusque  honest  speech  of 
British  forbears.  Lady  Tyrconnel  had  receptions  in  Berlin  and 
presently  acted  in  Voltaire’s  company  of  noble  amateurs. 

The  Scotchmen  were  the  two  brothers  George  and  James 
Keith,  Jacobites  and  gentlemen,  ‘not  only  accomplished  men, 
but  nobles  and  warriors,’  the  only  friends  of  the  King  whom  his 
bitter  tongue  spared.  Nay  more,  George  Keith  was,  says 
Macaulay,  ‘ the  only  human  being  whom  Frederick  ever  really 
loved.’  Earl  Marischal  of  Scotland,  he  had  fought  with 
his  brave  young  brother  for  that  forlorn  hope,  the  cause  of  the 
Stuarts,  in  1715.  They  had  long  wandered  on  the  Continent, 
and  at  last  found  a home  in  Potsdam  with  Frederick. 

The  only  Prussian  of  the  suppers  was  Baron  Pollnitz,  and  he 


216 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1750 


was  cosmopolitan,  had  many  times  visited  Paris,  and  had  a rich 
store  of  travellers’  tales.  Clever  and  well  born,  he  was  extrava- 
gant and  miserably  poor ; and  since  he  could  not  afford  to  lose 
Frederick’s  favour,  was  the  butt  of  his  royal  master’s  cruellest 
jokes — the  wretched  scapegoat  who  could  not  escape  and  whose 
very  helplessness  goaded  Frederick’s  bitter  wit  to  new  effort. 

Of  such  an  assembly  as  this,  versatile  and  brilliant  though 
it  was,  Voltaire  and  the  King  were  the  natural  leaders. 

Sulzer,  who  had  listened  to  it,  declared  that  it  was  better  to 
hear  the  conversation  of  Voltaire,  Algarotti,  and  d’Argens  than  to 
read  the  most  interesting  and  best  written  book  in  the  world.  The 
talk  was  on  ‘ morals,  history,  philosophy.’  It  was  the  boast  of 
the  talkers  that  they  had  no  prejudices.  They  explored  all 
subjects  as  one  explores  a newly  discovered  country,  knowing 
neither  whether  it  be  sterile  or  fertile,  rich  or  poor — eager  to  learn, 
sharp-set  to  see — and  without  fear  of  consequence.  No  topic  was 
debarred  them.  The  only  intoxication  was  of  ideas.  6 One  thinks 
boldly,  one  is  free,’  said  Voltaire.  £ Wit,  reason,  and  science  ’ 
abounded.  Frederick  stimulated  the  conversation  by  always 
taking  one  side  of  a question  when  his  guests  took  the  other. 
His  own  tongue  was  so  caustic  that  it  has  been  said  that  it  is 
difficult  to  conceive  how  ‘ anything  short  of  hunger  should  have 
induced  men  to  bear  the  misery  of  being  the  associates  of  the 
great  King.’  But  that  is  to  take  a very  one-sided  view  of  his 
character.  If  one  hand  could  scratch,  the  other  could  caress. 
If  on  one  side  of  his  nature  he  was  a brutal  jester,  an 
untamed  barbarian,  on  the  other  he  was  a thinker  and  a 
philosopher  with  all  the  light,  the  ease,  the  charm,  and  the 
cultivation  of  France. 

Besides,  there  was  one  man  at  the  suppers  whom  the  King 
feared.  Frederick’s  satire  was  a saw  ; but  Voltaire’s  was  a knife  : 
and  the  clumsier  instrument  dreaded  the  finer.  A needy  Pollnitz 
or  a patient  Darget  might  bear  the  royal  insolence  in  silence. 
But  it  did  not  yet  dare  to  encounter  that  ‘ most  terrible  of  all  the 
intellectual  weapons  ever  wielded  by  man,  the  mockery  of  Vol- 
taire.’ Saw  and  knife  seem  both,  for  the  while,  to  have  been 
quietly  put  away. 

A Voltaire  with  his  splendid  capacity  for  living  in  the  present 
moment  may  sometimes  have  forgotten  the  very  existence  of 


Mt.  56] 


GLAMOUR 


217 


the  King’s  weapon.  ‘ No  cloud,’  ‘ far  less  a storm,’  marred  the 
harmony  of  those  suppers. 

Between  them,  operas,  receptions,  correcting  the  royal  com- 
positions, and  spending  long  days  with  his  own,  the  September 
and  October  of  this  autumn  of  1750  passed  away.  Now  and 
again  a courtly  Voltaire  went  to  pay  his  devoirs  at  the  Court 
of  the  Queen  Mother  and  read  her  cantos  of  the  ‘ Pucelle,’ 
which  he  assured  the  good  Protestant  lady  was  nothing  in 
the  world  but  a satire  on  the  Church  of  Rome.  Nor  did  he 
neglect  to  attend  the  dull  and  frugal  receptions  of  Frederick’s 
unhappy  wife,  the  pretty  and  accomplished  Elizabeth  Christina. 
Hanbury  Williams  was  in  Berlin  in  September  as  English  envoy, 
and  made  Voltaire  complimentary  verses  on  ‘Rome  Sauvee.’ 
The  exile  continued  to  write  long  letters  to  his  friends,  speaking 
of  his  speedy  return  to  France  and  of  the  thousand  delights  of 
life  in  his  present  ‘paradise  of  philosophers.’ 

He  had  chosen  rightly  after  all ! All  would  be  well.  All 
was  well.  But 


218 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1750 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE  BIFT  WITHIN  THE  LUTE 

On  November  6,  1750,  at  Potsdam,  and  after  he  had  been  in 
Prussia  rather  less  than  three  months,  Uncle  Voltaire  took  his 
versatile  pen  in  hand  and  wrote  to  Louise  Denis  a famous  letter 
— the  letter  of  Buts.  Prussia  had  fulfilled  all  his  hopes,  nay, 
had  exceeded  them,  but . ‘ The  King’s  suppers  are  delight- 
ful, but .’  ‘ My  life  is  at  once  free  and  occupied,  but .’ 

‘ Operas,  comedies,  carousals,  suppers  at  Sans-Souci,  military 

manoeuvres,  concerts,  study,  readings,  but .’  ‘ Berlin  splendid 

with  its  gracious  queens  and  charming  princesses,  but .’ 

‘ But,  my  dear,  a very  fine  frost  has  set  in.’ 

That  letter  might  serve  not  only  as  a description  of  life  at 
Potsdam,  but  of  all  human  life.  A most  delightful  world, 

but . The  truth  was  that  Voltaire  had  begun  to  feel  the 

grip  of  Frederick’s  iron  hand.  On  November  17  he  wrote  again 
to  his  niece  and  told  her  a little,  ugly  story.  Secretary  Darget 
had  lost  his  wife.  And  the  great  Frederick  wrote  to  him  a letter 
of  sympathy,  ‘ very  touching,  pathetic,  and  even  Christian  ’ ; and 
the  same  day  made  a shameful  epigram  upon  the  dead  woman. 
1 It  does  not  bear  thinking  about,’  wrote  Voltaire.  Whose  turn 
might  it  not  be  next?  ‘We  are  here  . . . like  monks  in  an 
abbey,’  he  added.  ‘ God  grant  the  abbot  stops  at  making  game 
of  us ! ’ 

There  was  another  source  of  trouble  going  on  at  the  same 
time.  Who  could  have  expected  that  a Voltaire  and  a d’Arnaud 
could  share  a kingdom  in  peace  ? ‘ Do  you  not  know,’  Voltaire 

said  once,  1 that  when  there  are  two  Frenchmen  in  a foreign 
court  or  country  one  of  them  must  die  ? ’ He  had  forgiven  that 
‘ rising  sun  ’ affair  ; but  he  had  not  forgotten  it.  This  d’Arnaud, 


HCt.  56] 


THE  RIFT  WITHIN  THE  LUTE 


219 


too,  was  the  most  absurd,  conceited,  ungrateful  simpleton 
imaginable. 

Voltaire  had  not  only  lent  him  money.  He  had  done  much 
more  than  that.  He  had  tried  to  make  his  protege  fit  for  some 
good  post — to  make  him  improve,  for  instance,  a shameful  hand- 
writing. He  had  introduced  him  to  Helvetius.  He  is  ‘ as  my 
son,’  ‘he  has  merit,’  ‘he  is  poor  and  virtuous.’  In  return 
Baculard  had  paid  his  master  some  fine  compliments ; and  in 
1789  had  written  a preface  for  a new  edition  of  M.  de  Voltaire’s 
works,  in  which  the  flattery  was  so  fulsome  that  M.  de  Voltaire 
himself  cut  out,  or  toned  down,  some  of  the  most  eulogistic 
passages. 

Then  came  Baculard’s  invitation  to  Prussia.  He  gave  him- 
self the  finest  insolent  airs.  He  pretended  to  be  surprised  at 
the  smallness  of  the  handsome  pension  Frederick  had  given  him. 
If  he  was  not  of  the  suppers,  he  had  every  other  honour.  He 
was  received  by  the  princes,  and  play-acted  with  them.  The 
story  goes  that  being  given  a part  in  ‘ Mariamne  ’ too  small  for 
his  conceit,  he  did  it  as  badly  as  he  could ; and  Voltaire  lost 
his  temper  with  him  and  cried  out  ‘ You  are  not  clever  enough 
for  the  role ; you  do  not  even  know  how  to  speak  the  words ! ’ 
But  Baculard’s  hot  head  was  turned.  The  princes,  and  that 
negligible  quantity,  Frederick’s  wife,  had  taken  him  up  and  were 
playing  him  off  against  Frederick’s  Voltaire.  Then  the  mis- 
guided young  man  was  positively  foolish  enough  to  ally  himself 
with  Voltaire’s  enemy,  Freron,  and  to  attack  the  wickedest, 
cleverest  foe  that  ever  man  had.  Baculard  wrote  Freron  a letter 
to  be  shown  about  Paris,  in  which  he  not  only  denied  the 
authorship  of  that  flattering  preface  written  in  1789,  but  added 
that  Voltaire  himself  had  inserted  therein  ‘horrible  things’ 
against  France. 

And  of  a sudden,  Voltaire  flung  off  the  encumbering  mantle  of 
comfortable  prosperity  he  had  worn  for  so  short  a time  and  was 
at  his  foolish  bombastical  minor  poet,  tooth  and  nail. 

On  November  14,  1750,  he  wrote  to  tell  his  Angel  of  the 
affair.  Then  he  wrote  to  King  Frederick  and  insisted  on  Frederick 
taking  his  part — cool  Frederick  who  would  fain  have  conciliated 
both  parties.  I cannot  meet  the  man,  Sire ! He  is  going  to-day 
to  Berlin  in  Prince  Henry’s  carriage,  why  should  he  not  stop 


220 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1750-51 


there  to  study,  to  attend  the  Academy — whatever  you  like ! I do 
not  mention  the  word  renvoi , but  that  is  what  I mean.  ‘ And  I 
leave  all  to  the  goodness  and  prudence  of  your  Majesty.’ 

On  November  24  a very  triumphant  uncle  wrote  to  his  niece 
that  ‘the  rising  sun  has  gone  to  bed.’  D’Arnaud  in  fact  had 
been  ordered  to  leave  Berlin  in  twenty-four  hours  and — the  King 
had  forgotten  to  pay  the  expenses  of  his  journey.  Voltaire  was 
victorious.  Most  of  his  friends  and  all  his  enemies  both  in  Paris 
and  Berlin  had  been  watching  that  quarrel  with  a scrutiny 
seemingly  out  of  all  proportion  to  its  importance.  D’Arnaud  had 
gone  into  obscurity  for  ever.  But  the  easily  elated  Voltaire  was  not 
long  elated  this  time  somehow.  Here  again  was  food  for  thought. 
If  one  favourite  was  lost  as  suddenly  as  a bright  exhalation 
in  the  evening  and  no  man  saw  him  more,  why  not  another  ? 

‘ And  when  he  falls,  he  falls  like  Lucifer,  never  to  hope  again.’ 

The  victory  left  Arouet  strangely  pensive. 

D’Arnaud  had  not  only  wrought  mischief,  it  appears,  but  left 
a train  of  it  behind  him.  His  patron,  Prince  Henry,  had  long 
desired  a copy  of  that  firebrand,  that  stormy  petrel,  the  ‘ Pucelle.’ 
Just  before  his  dismissal,  the  obliging  d’Arnaud  had  helped  the 
Prince  to  corrupt  Voltaire’s  secretary,  Tinois  ; and  paid  him  to 
copy  some  cantos  of  the  poem  for  the  Prince,  by  night.  Tinois 
was  a young  man  whom  Voltaire  had  taken  into  his  service  when 
he  was  at  Rheims  in  October  1749,  for  no  better  reason  than 
that  he  had  written  rather  a pretty  verse  after  reading  ‘ Rome 
Sauvee.’  On  January  3,  1751,  Voltaire  wrote  to  Madame 
Denis  that  he  had  dismissed  Tinois,  and  that  Prince  Henry  had 
sworn  to  keep  the  ‘ Pucelle  ’ secret  and  safe.  But  if  ‘ put  not 
your  trust  in  princes  ’ had  long  been  the  burden  of  Madame  du 
Chatelet’s  and  of  his  niece’s  warnings,  it  had  sunk  into  Voltaire’s 
soul  now.  He  was  not  at  ease. 

The  successor  of  the  faithless  Tinois  gave  him  further 
trouble. 

The  new  secretary’s  name  was  Richier.  He  had  a friend 
called  Lessing  who  was  to  be  the  great  German  writer,  but  who 
was  now  obscure,  poor,  and  unknown,  two-and-twenty  years  of 
age,  and  trying  to  make  a livelihood  in  Berlin  by  copying  and 
translating.  Richier  introduced  him  to  the  great  Voltaire  ; and 
the  good-natured  Voltaire  gave  Lessing  work  and  became  very 


JEt.  56-57]  THE  EIFT  WITHIN  THE  LUTE 


221 


much  his  friend.  Then  the  foolish  Eichier  lends  Lessing  a 
volume  of  Voltaire’s  i Century  of  Louis  XIV.’ — the  work  and 
pride  of  so  many  years — and  now  almost  ready  for  the  press. 
Lessing  leaves  Berlin — with  the  volume.  Considering  the  fact 
that  the  upright  character  of  Lessing  was  not  then  a notorious 
thing,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  Voltaire  was  alarmed.  Suppose 
Lessing  should  publish  the  volume  on  his  own  account,  and  in  its 
imperfect  state ! Voltaire  wrote  Lessing  a very  courteous  letter 
asking  for  its  return.  And  Lessing  sent  back  the  manuscript 
with  some  very  ill-timed  jokes.  Lessing,  it  must  be  remembered, 
was  nobody,  and  young ; and  Voltaire  was  past  middle  life  and 
the  most  famous  literary  man  of  his  period.  The  offender  never 
forgave  Voltaire  for  having  suspected  that  he  would  make  dis- 
honourable use  of  his  manuscript.  But,  after  all,  Voltaire  seems 
to  have  been  more  sinned  against  than  sinning. 

There  were,  too,  going  on  at  the  same  time  various  mean 
domestic  disagreeables — literally  storms  in  teacups.  Formey, 
writer  of  memoirs,  but  not  always  of  reliable  memoirs,  records 
how  Voltaire  complained  to  the  King  of  the  bad  sugar,  coffee,  tea, 
and  chocolate  served  to  him  ; how  the  King  apologised,  and 
altered  nothing  ; and  how  angry  the  great  Voltaire  demeaned 
himself  to  be  over  these  trifles.  Did  he  remember  that  he  had 
written  hotly  to  Alliot,  King  Stanislas’  chamberlain  at  Lune- 
ville,  in  1749,  just  before  the  death  of  Madame  du  Chatelet,  on 
a like  subject  ? 4 1 can  assure  you  at  Berlin  I am  not  obliged  to 

beg  for  bread,  wine,  and  candles.’  And  now  ! The  truth  is  best 
summed  up  by  the  most  thorough  and  minute  of  all  Voltaire’s 
biographers,  Desnoiresterres.  ‘ He  used,  and  thought  he  was 
entitled  to  use  largely,  a hospitality  which  he  had  only  accepted 
after  many  invitations  and  prayers.’  He  asked  his  friends  to 
dine  with  him  on  ‘ the  King’s  roast  ’ without  any  fear  of  exceed- 
ing his  rights  as  a guest.  Formey  adds  that  he  appropriated  the 
candle-ends  which  were  the  servants’  perquisites ; and  records 
that,  through  meanness,  when  the  Court  was  in  mourning  he 
appeared  in  a borrowed  black  suit  and  returned  it  to  its  portly 
owner,  cut  to  the  dimensions  of  the  lean  Voltairian  figure.  The 
story  seems  to  be  that  lie  which  is  part  of  the  truth.  True  or  false, 
it  is  not  worth  examination.  No  doubtful  anecdotes  are  needed 
to  prove  that  Voltaire  was  the  sensitive  philosopher  whose 


222 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1751 


delicate  body  made  him  singularly  unphilosopbic  in  trifles  ; or 
that  in  money  affairs  he  was  at  once  exceedingly  generous  and 
prudently  thrifty. 

But  he  had  to  do  now  with  a money  affair  in  which  his 
prudence,  alas  ! was  only  conspicuous  by  its  absence. 

In  November  of  1750  had  begun  his  too-famous  affair  with 
Hirsch,  Jew  usurer  of  Berlin. 

He  had  been  first  brought  into  relations  with  the  shifty 
Israelite  on  November  9.  On  the  day  following  he  played 
‘ Cicero  ’ in  his  ‘ Rome  Sauvee  ’ — a blaze  of  jewels,  borrowed 
from  the  Hirsch  father  and  son.  On  November  23  he  received 
Hirsch  fils  (Hirsch  fils  transacted  all  the  business,  Hirsch  pere 
being  well  stricken  in  years)  in  his  room  at  Potsdam  quite  close 
to  the  unconscious  Frederick  ; and  there,  forsooth,  M.  de  Voltaire, 
with  the  aid  of  M.  Hirsch,  plans  to  do  on  the  quiet  a little 
illegal  stock-jobbing.  Several  years  before,  the  Elector  of  Saxony 
had  established  a bank  in  Dresden.  It  issued  such  an  immense 
number  of  notes  that  ‘ the  currency  of  Saxony  was  inflated  : for 
a time  a note  of  one  hundred  thalers  was  worth  but  fifty.’ 
Frederick,  when  the  Silesian  war  made  him  master  of  Dresden, 
stipulated  that  Prussian  subjects  holding  these  notes  should  be 
paid  in  full.  This  went  on  for  three  years ; but  in  1748, 
Frederick,  yielding  to  the  remonstrances  of  the  Elector,  forbade 
his  subjects  to  purchase  these  notes  or  to  bring  them  into  the 
Prussian  kingdom  at  all.  Such  notes  it  was,  which  on  this 
fatal  November  23,  1750,  a cunning  M.  de  Voltaire  commissioned 
Hirsch  to  purchase,  and  then  to  sell  again  in  Saxony,  receiving  of 
course  their  full  nominal  value.  To  effect  this  purchase,  Voltaire 
gave  Hirsch  negotiable  bills  worth  2,500 L 

One  of  these  bills  was  a draft  on  Voltaire’s  Paris  banker  for 
1,600/.,  ‘ not  payable  for  some  weeks.’  Bill  two  was  a draft  for 
650Z.  by  old  father  Hirsch — or  Hirschell,  as  Voltaire  called  him — 
on  Voltaire  himself.  In  exchange  for  these  two  bills,  Voltaire 
held  the  borrowed  jewels. 

There  is  nothing  more  remarkable  about  Voltaire,  considered 
in  his  character  of  a literary  man,  than  the  fact  that  he  was 
always  speculating,  and  except  on  this  occasion,  hardly  ever  un- 
successfully. But  a Court  is  no  place  for  a secret.  By 
November  29  some  rumour  of  his  guest’s  little  affair  had  reached 


^Et.  57] 


THE  RIFT  WITHIN  THE  LUTE 


223 


Frederick.  On  December  1 that  procrastinating  Hirsch  had  not 
even  started  on  his  journey  to  Dresden.  Hirsch  is  pretty  cool 
about  the  whole  business,  it  appears,  and  not  inclined  to  hurry 
himself.  Voltaire’s  dancing,  agitated  impatience  spurs  him  off 
at  last.  From  December  1 to  12  he  is  in  Dresden — delaying, 
making  excuses  and  cashing  never  a Saxon  note.  (All  he  did  do 
was  to  raise  money  on  the  Paris  draft  for  1,600Z.  Voltaire  had  given 
him,  and  trade  on  his  own  account.)  Voltaire  entirely  loses  his 
temper,  stops  the  payment  of  that  draft  on  his  Paris  banker,  and 
summons  Hirsch  home  at  once.  He  comes.  Still  pretty  cool  is 
M.  Hirsch.  Rather  injured,  if  anything,  in  fact.  It  is  not 
pleasant,  M.  de  Voltaire,  ‘ to  have  sold  a bill  of  exchange  which 
the  drawer  protested  ; ’ and  that  is  what  happened  to  me  about 
that  Paris  draft  of  yours  ! I have  the  paper  now — entirely 
worthless  of  course.  But  M.  Hirsch  takes  care  to  keep  it  very 
securely  all  the  same.  For  a Hirsch  to  have  such  a document 
signed  Arouet  de  Voltaire  may  be  rather  an  awkward  thing  for 
the  King’s  visitor ; and  so,  a profitable  one  for  a Hirsch,  as  giving 
him  a hold  over  his  client.  He  has,  or  fancies  he  has,  the  whip 
hand  of  M.  de  Voltaire,  who  cannot  make  himself  very  disagreable, 
thinks  Hirsch,  since  the  whole  affair  is  illegal  and  under  the 
rose. 

On  December  16,  Voltaire,  come  to  Berlin  with  King  and 
Court  for  the  Christmas  carnival,  receives  Hirsch.  The  two 
draw  up  a document,  1 a complete  settlement.’  Hirsch  gives 
back  Voltaire  his  unused  drafts  ‘ and  expressly  engages  to  return 
the  bill  upon  Paris.’  Voltaire,  in  exchange,  is  to  buy  some  of 
the  Hirsch  jewels  he  holds,  and  to  give  Hirsch  the  expenses  of  his 
journey  and  ‘ compensation  ’ for  his  time  and  trouble.  The 
dangerous  affair  is  at  an  end.  M.  de  Voltaire  supposes  he  has 
done  with  it  for  ever.  He  and  Hirsch  part  satisfied.  Then 
Hirsch  discovers  that  Voltaire  considers  9 1.  compensation 
sufficient.  The  Jew  does  not.  Voltaire  consults  another  money- 
lender, Ephraim,  the  enemy  of  the  house  of  Hirsch,  who  tells 
him  the  jewels  he  holds  are  not  worth  what  Hirsch  said  they 
were.  ‘ Then  you  must  have  changed  them,’  says  Hirsch.  That 
is  the  declaration  of  war. 

Until  the  Christmas  Day  of  that  1750,  daily  stormy  meetings 
between  Hirsch  and  Voltaire  took  place  in  Voltaire’s  room  in  the 


224 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1751 


palace.  Voltaire  was  convinced  the  Jew  meant  to  extract  money 
from  him  by  means  of  the  Paris  bill : and  return  that  bill  Hirsch 
would  not.  No  one  who  remembers  the  character  of  a youthful 
and  middle-aged  Arouet  will  be  in  the  least  surprised  to  hear 
that  an  Arouet  of  fifty-six  chased  the  Jew  round  the  room  at 
last,  shook  his  fist  in  his  face,  pushed  him  out  of  the  door  in  a 
rage,  and  banged  it  after  him  like  a passionate  child. 

The  4 final  total  explosion  ’ took  place  at  a meeting  at  ‘ brave 
Major  Chasot’s  ’ lodging  when  the  vif  infuriated  Voltaire  sprang 
at  Hirsch’s  throat  and  sent  him  sprawling. 

The  affair  had  been  noised  abroad.  If  Hirsch  still  thought — 
and  he  did  still  think — that  it  would  be  so  singularly  unpleasant 
and  impolitic  for  Voltaire  to  have  the  transaction  made  public 
and  that  he  would  submit  to  any  indignity  rather  than  to  that 
catastrophe,  he  had  mistaken  his  man.  He  had  reckoned  without 
the  marvellous  imprudence,  mettle,  and  vivacity  of  the  enemy  of 
Rohan  and  Desfontaines  and  Boyer.  Here  was  he  who  never 
made  a compromise,  and  in  his  whole  life  never  once  bought 
peace  by  submitting  to  be  cheated. 

The  fuse  had  been  put  to  the  gunpowder : and  on  December  30 
came  a shock  which  startled  Europe. 

The  great  Voltaire,  the  guest  of  the  King  of  Prussia,  versus 
Messrs.  Hirsch  & Son,  Jew  moneylenders  of  Berlin  ! Here  was 
a cause  celebre  with  a vengeance  ! 

Voltaire  was  quite  as  active  and  excited  as  he  had  been  in  the 
affair  Desfontaines.  He  engaged  the  best  counsel  he  could  get. 
On  January  1,  1751,  he  obtained  a warrant  to  throw  old  Hirsch 
into  prison  for  wrongly  detaining  papers  belonging  to  M.  de 
Voltaire.  Hirsch  was  released  therefrom  in  a few  days  on  bail — 
and  the  lawsuit  began. 

To  unravel  the  truth  from  that  complex  tissue  of  lies  has  been 
the  effort  of  all  Frederick’s  and  of  all  Voltaire’s  biographers. 
None  have  wholly  succeeded.  The  case  is  infinitely  intricate. 
The  Hirsches  lied  very  freely,  and  were  inartistic  enough  not 
always  to  adhere  to  the  same  lie.  It  has  been  seen  that  though 
Voltaire  preferred  truth  and  honesty  (which  is  already  some- 
thing) he  was  not  above  lying — when  there  was  necessity.  His 
case,  in  brief,  was,  ‘ I lent  Hirsch  money  to  help  his  business  at 
Dresden  in  fur  and  jewels.’  (This  was  the  pretext  on  which  the 


Mt.  57] 


THE  EIFT  WITHIN  THE  LUTE 


225 


Jew  had  undertaken  the  journey.)  ‘ Some  diamonds  I took  from 
him  in  part  payment  are  not  worth  what  he  said  they  were ; and 
he  illegally  retains  my  draft  on  my  Paris  banker,  and  has  not 
kept  to  the  agreement  he  signed/ 

Hirsch’s  case  was  ‘M.  de  Voltaire  sent  me  to  Dresden  to 
deal  in  Saxon  notes  for  him.  The  diamonds  I gave  him  were 
worth  what  I said.  He  has  changed  them  for  diamonds  of  less 
value.  The  agreement  he  produces,  signed  by  me,  was  altered 
by  him,  to  his  advantage,  after  I had  signed  it.’ 

Documents  were  produced  on  both  sides.  That  famous  paper 
of  agreement  which  Hirsch  had  signed  and  of  which  he  now 
accused  Voltaire  of  altering  the  wording,  after  he,  Hirsch,  had 
signed  it,  has  been  reproduced  in  facsimile. 

It  proves  nothing.  The  document  has  been  palpably  altered. 
But  who  is  to  say  if  those  illiterate  and  careless  alterations  were 
made  before,  or  after,  Hirsch  had  signed  it  ? If  after,  then 
Voltaire  was  the  most  blundering  and  ignorant  of  forgers.  But 
those  early  chafing  months  in  a notary’s  office  must  have  given 
a shrewd  head  such  as  his  a knowledge  of  law  and  legal  docu- 
ments which  would  have  made  him  a better  swindler  than  this 
forgery  proves  him.  Voltaire’s  cleverness,  not  his  virtue,  exone- 
rates him  from  that  crime. 

The  man’s  mind  was  on  the  rack  while  the  case  lasted.  His 
fury  against  the  Hirsches  blinded  him  to  the  folly  and  indignity 
of  having  been  drawn  into  such  a suit  at  all.  ‘ I was  piqued. 
I was  mad  to  prove  I had  been  cheated,’  he  wrote  penitently 
afterwards.  Wretched  old  Hirsch  died  during  the  progress  of  the 
trial — of  a broken  heart,  said  his  son  pathetically.  King  Frederick 
preserved  a very  ominous  silence  indeed.  His  guest’s  health  was 
miserable.  He  had  a fever — of  the  soul — and  Berlin  and  Paris 
were  watching,  as  at  a play. 

On  February  18,  1751,  the  case  was  decided  in  favour  of 
Voltaire.  Hirsch  was  condemned  on  every  count  with  which 
Voltaire  had  charged  him.  The  purpose  for  which  Voltaire  had 
advanced  the  money  was  not,  said  the  court  shrewdly,  the  court’s 
business.  But  all  the  waiting  and  watching  world  knew  what 
that  purpose  had  been,  and  so  did  the  waiting  and  watching 
Frederick.  Hirsch  was  to  restore  the  Paris  exchange  bill.  The 
diamonds  were  to  be  valued  ‘by  experienced  jewellers  on  their 

Q 


226 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1751 


oaths.’  Voltaire’s  seizure  of  the  person  of  Hirsch  was  declared 
just  and  right.  As  to  the  famous  agreement,  Hirsch  was  fined 
ten  thalers  for  denying  he  had  signed  it ; and  Voltaire  was  to 
make  an  affidavit  that  he  had  not  changed  its  wording. 

It  is  said  that  he  asked  upon  what  book  he  was  to  take  his 
oath,  and  when  he  was  answered  6 The  Bible,’  cried,  ‘ What,  on 
that  book  written  in  such  bad  Latin  ! Now  if  it  were  only 
Homer  or  Virgil ! ’ If  the  story  is  true,  it  was  but  a flash  of 
the  old  mocking  spirit.  Voltaire  was  in  no  mood  for  jesting.  He 
had  won,  it  is  true.  But  his  victory  was  a sorry  one. 

It  was  such  a sorry  one  that  the  unlucky  victor  had  perforce 
to  go  about  congratulating  himself  loudly  thereon,  if  only  to 
make  other  people  congratulate  him  too.  Even  now,  the  settle- 
ment was  not  complete. 

The  jewels  had  to  be  valued.  That  would  take  time.  Voltaire 
was  worn  body  and  soul  by  a case  which  had  kept  him  at  a fever 
heat  of  passion  from  December  1,  1750,  until  this  February  18, 
1751.  And  in  a deadly  silence  the  King  sat  aloof  in  a rage. 
Voltaire’s  friends  implored  him  to  end  an  affair  which  had  been 
degrading  to  everyone  concerned  in  it.  And  at  last  he  did  come 
to  some  sort  of  compromise  with  the  determined  Hirsch.  A few 
minor  points  appear  to  have  been  still  undecided  as  late  as  the 
December  of  1751. 

Throughout  a whole  three  months  Frederick  had  uttered  never 
a word. 

His  attitude  towards  this  case  was  at  once  natural  and  justi- 
fiable. It  was  a poor,  mean,  despicable  business  at  the  best. 
Kingly  hands,  of  all  hands  in  the  world,  if  they  touch  pitch  are 
defiled  therewith.  Frederick  shut  ears  and  eyes  to  the  shriekings 
and  the  cheatings  of  this  pair  of  low  moneylenders— and  his 
guest.  At  first,  indeed,  his  fury  with  that  guest  had  got  the 
better  of  him.  On  January  12,  1751,  the  King  of  France 
announced  at  his  levee  that  the  King  of  Prussia  had  dismissed 
Voltaire.  Angry  Frederick  had  turned  to  Darget,  saying  4 Write 
and  tell  him  that  he  is  to  be  out  of  my  dominions  in  four-and- 
twenty  hours.’  Well  for  Voltaire  that  he  had  cultivated  the  friend- 
ship of  the  discreet  secretary  ! Darget  pleaded  for  him.  1 Wait  till 
the  case  is  tried,  Sire  ! If  he  is  guilty,  then  will  be  time  enough 
to  send  him  away.’  Frederick  agreed  ; but  during  January  and 


JEt.  57] 


THE  RIFT  WITHIN  THE  LUTE 


227 


February  they  never  met.  Voltaire  was  for  the  most  part  in 
Berlin,  and  the  King  at  Potsdam : but  sometimes  they  were  in 
the  same  palace  divided  by  a few  planks  of  wood — and  the  Jew 
lawsuit. 

The  versatility  of  Voltaire  had  hardly  ever  been  better 
exemplified  than  by  the  fact  that  during  this  very  December  and 
January  when  rage  and  anxiety  were  tearing  him  to  pieces,  and 
he  was  breathlessly  waiting  the  judgment  of  his  case,  he  was 
play-acting  with  the  princesses  in  Berlin  exactly  as  if  nothing 
were  happening,  and  as  if  he  were  in  full  favour  with  the  King. 
On  January  5 ‘Zaire’  was  acted  and  Voltaire  played  Lusignan 
as  he  had  done  in  happier  days  at  Madame  de  Fontaine  Martel’s  : 
the  Princess  Amelia  was  Zaire  ; the  Princes  Henry  and  Frederick 
also  took  parts  ; and  the  Queen  was  enchanted.  ‘ The  Death  of 
Caesar’  was  also  acted,  and  other  plays.  Throughout  the  winter 
too  Voltaire  gave  audiences  to  great  persons  ; and  received  mar- 
shals, princes,  statesmen,  and  nobles. 

Yet,  through  it  all,  the  man  was  appealing  passionately  to 
the  King  by  Darget.  ‘ Throw  yourself  at  the  King’s  feet 
and  obtain  for  me  that  I may  retire  to  the  Marquisat  ’ (a 
country  house  near  Potsdam).  ‘ My  soul  is  dead  and  my  body 
dying.’ 

When  he  was  not  drawing  tears  from  the  spectators  in  that 
moving  part  of  the  old  father,  tears  of  rage  and  bitterness  were 
very  near  his  own  eyes.  ‘It  is  not  sufficient  to  be  courageous,’ 
he  said  himself  ; ‘ one  must  have  distractions.’  He  had  need  of 
them  if  any  man  had. 

On  January  22,  the  King  summed  up  the  case  to  the  Mar- 
gravine of  Bayreuth  as  ‘ the  affair  of  a rascal  who  is  trying  to 
cheat  a sharper.  . . . The  suit  is  in  the  hands  of  justice,  and  in 
a few  days  we  shall  know  who  is  the  greater  scoundrel  of  the 
two.’  On  January  80  Voltaire  himself  wrote  to  the  Margravine 
with  a very  wry  face:  ‘Brother  Voltaire  is  here  in  disgrace. 
He  has  had  a dog  of  lawsuit  with  a Jew,  and,  according  to  the 
law  of  the  Old  Testament,  he  will  have  to  pay  dearly  for  having 
been  robbed.’ 

Then  Voltaire  wrote  direct  to  the  King  and  pleaded  and 
argued  with  him  personally.  Only  receive  me  into  favour  and 
I will  anger  you  no  more  ! And  on  February  2 Frederick  wrote 

Q2 


228 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIKE 


[1751 


again  to  the  Margravine,  softened  not  at  all ; and  she  wrote  on 
February  18  to  her  friend  Voltaire  : ‘ Apollo  at  law  with  a Jew ! 
Fie  then  ! that’s  abominable.’  Then  Voltaire  appealed  again  to 
Frederick.  4 All  the  genius  of  our  modern  Solomon  could  not 
make  me  feel  my  fault  more  than  my  heart  feels  it.’ 

Finally  Solomon  did  give  Apollo  that  Marquisat  he  had  asked 
for ; and  Voltaire’s  ‘ quarrel  with  the  Old  Testament,’  as  he 
called  it,  being  settled,  the  King  wrote  to  him  icily  on  February  24 
from  Potsdam : ‘D’Arnaud  had  done  nothing.  It  was  because 
of  you  he  had  to  go.  . . . You  have  had  the  most  detestable 
affair  in  the  world  with  a Jew.  It  has  made  a frightful  scandal. 
...  If  you  can  make  up  your  mind  to  live  like  a philosopher 
I shall  be  glad  to  see  you.’  If  not  . . . 1 you  may  as  well  stay 
in  Berlin.’ 

On  February  27  Voltaire  replied,  volubly  explaining,  regret- 
ting, apologising.  He  owned  himself  in  the  wrong  with  a can- 
dour and  humility  rather  engaging. 

‘ I have  committed  a great  fault.  I ask  pardon  of  your 
Majesty’s  philosophy  and  goodness.  ...  Do  with  me  what  you 
will.’  His  health  was  suffering  dreadfully  at  the  time.  ‘ The 
winter  kills  me  ’ — especially  the  winter  of  our  discontent.  Even 
hard  work  at  ‘ Louis  XIV.’  could  not  make  him  forget  that.  He 
pleaded  very  hard  indeed. 

On  February  28  Frederick  accorded  a cold  permission  to  him 
to  come  to  Potsdam  if  he  would. 

By  March  11  he  was  established  at  the  Marquisat  with,  as  he 
said,  ‘ pills  and  pill-boxes  ’ and  the  fifth  canto  of  a poem  by  King 
Frederick  entitled  ‘ The  Art  of  War.’ 

The  King  no  doubt  had  missed  Voltaire’s  conversation.  He 
had  missed  too  his  brilliant,  delightful,  inconsequent,  unreliable 
personality.  The  old  subtle  charm  drew  the  two  men  together — 
in  spite  of  themselves,  and  the  imprudence  of  their  connection. 
They  were  sure  to  quarrel ! But,  like  many  a lover  and  his 
mistress,  they  were  dying  to  see  each  other,  if  it  were  only  to 
discover  fresh  reasons  for  disagreement.  ‘ I have  committed  a 
folly,’  wrote  Voltaire  to  Madame  Denis,  ‘ but  I am  not  a fool.’ 
He  was  something  so  infinitely  removed  from  a fool  that  his 
living  touch  of  genius  alone  could  raise,  if  anything  could  raise, 
Frederick’s  poems  from  a dead  mediocrity  and  the  dreadful  limbo 


JSt.  57] 


THE  RIFT  WITHIN  THE  LUTE 


229 


of  dulness.  ‘ To  the  Prussians  ’ and  4 The  Art  of  War  ’ were 
very  important  factors  in  the  Treaty  of  Peace. 

Very  early  in  his  stay  in  Prussia  the  indefatigable  Voltaire 
had  begun  learning  a little  of  the  despised  German  language — 
of  which,  says  Morley,  he  never  knew  more  ‘ than  was  needed  to 
curse  a postillion.’  To  correct  the  King’s  works,  he  needed 
none.  By  October  28,  1750,  he  was  busy  overseeing  the  second 
edition  of  Frederick’s  history  of  his  country,  written  in  French 
and  entitled  4 Memoirs  of  the  House  of  Brandenburg,’  and  trying 
to  modify  the  royal  author’s  round  abuse  of  his  own  grandfather. 
But  Frederick  only  loved  truth  the  better  if  it  burnt.  ‘ After 
all,’  said  Voltaire  with  a shrug  of  his  lean  shoulders,  ‘ he  is  your 
grandfather,  not  mine ; do  as  you  like  with  him.’ 

The  critic  was  not  generally  so  accommodating,  however. 
He  was  not  a critic  pour  rire.  He  gave  himself  an  enormous 
amount  of  work.  He  ran  a thousand  risks  of  offending  his 
royal  pupil.  He  cavilled  at  this,  queried  that,  suggested  end- 
lessly. The  manuscript  of  ‘ Aux  Prussiens  ’ is  still  extant,  with 
remarks  in  Voltaire’s  little  handwriting  all  over  it.  His  minute- 
ness and  care  were  extraordinary.  It  would  have  been  at  least 
a hundred  times  easier  for  him  to  have  praised  lavishly  and  indif- 
ferently. Any  author  will  accept  flattery — on  trust.  It  is  only 
for  blame  and  disagreement  that  the  critic  must  give  clear  reason 
and  proof ; and  chapter  and  verse  for  his  alterations  and  amend- 
ments. If  Voltaire  had  been  a toady  and  had  not  loved  his  art 
better  than  all  monarchs,  he  would  have  wasted  much  less  of  his 
dearly  prized  time  in  ‘rounding  off  a little  the  works  of  the 
King  of  Prussia.’  His  ‘ official  fidelity,  frankness,  and  rigorous 
strictness  ’ are  a high  testimony  to  his  character.  ‘ The  Art  of 
War  ’ is  a much  more  ambitious  work  than  ‘ To  the  Prussians  ’ and 
was  subjected  to  the  same  relentless  criticism.  The  eager  critic 
wanted,  he  said,  to  enable  his  royal  master  to  do  without  his 
help.  Sometimes  Frederick  would  leave  a wrong  word  purposely. 
‘ We  must  give  him  the  pleasure  of  finding  some  fault,’  he  wrote 
to  Darget.  But  on  the  whole  he  accepted  not  only  verbal 
emendations,  but  alterations  of  his  very  opinions  with  a gene- 
rosity and  fairness  which  prove  the  true  royalty  of  the  royal  soul. 
This  quick,  thorough,  breathless,  aggravating  schoolmaster  would 
be  satisfied  with  nothing  less  than  his  pupil’s  best.  If  a man 


230 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1751 


could  be  made  a great  writer  without  being  born  one,  Frederick 
the  Great’s  literary  efforts  would  not  be  mouldering  in  the  libraries 
to-day. 

The  reconciliation  between  the  teacher  and  the  taught  seems 
for  a while  to  have  been  complete.  The  worry  of  the  Hirsch 
affair  had  made  Voltaire  really  ill.  But  Frederick  was  all  good- 
ness to  the  sufferer.  He  had  a room  kept  for  his  use  at  Sans- 
Souci.  Formey  records  how  one  day  he  went  to  the  Marquisat 
to  call  upon  Voltaire  and  found  him  in  bed.  ‘ What  is  the 
matter  with  you  ? ’ ‘ Four  mortal  diseases  ’ answers  the  invalid. 

1 Your  eyes  look  nice  and  bright  though,’  says  the  ill-advised 
Formey,  meaning  consolation.  ‘And  don’t  you  know,’  shouts 
the  sick  man  with  all  his  strength,  1 that  in  scurvy  people  die 
with  their  eyes  inflamed  ? ’ It  must  be  conceded  that  though 
Voltaire  never  allowed  his  ailments  to  stop  his  work,  he  liked  to 
have  full  credit  for  them,  and  took  care  never  to  be  ill  without 
impressing  upon  his  friends  that  he  was  dying.  All  the  same, 
he  began  to  attend  those  gay,  frugal,  philosophical  little  suppers 
once  more — and  was  once  more  permitted  to  dispense  with  the 
ponderous  dinners.  Yet  once  more  too,  except  for  that  ill-health, 
the  life  here  was  all  he  dreamed  it.  Frederick  wrote  him  little 
friendly  notes — ‘ I have  just  given  birth  to  six  twins.  . . . The 
“Henriade”  is  engaged  to  be  their  godmother.  Come  to  the 
father’s  room  at  six  o’clock  this  evening  ’ — the  six  twins  being 
six  cantos  of  ‘ The  Art  of  War.’  And  Voltaire  would  answer, 

‘ Sire,  you  have  the  cramp,  and  so  have  I ; you  love  solitude,  and 
so  do  I.’  The  pair  were  again  as  lovers,  in  fact ; writing  nothings, 
only  for  the  sake  of  writing  something.  The  winter  was  past, 
and  the  summer  blossoming  again. 

The  trip  to  Italy,  postponed  from  the  autumn  of  1750,  had 
been  arranged  to  take  place  in  this  May  of  1751,  but  was  finally 
abandoned  altogether  ; partly  on  account  of  the  Inquisition,  but 
partly  also,  it  may  be  surmised,  because  Frederick  having  found 
Voltaire  again,  was  in  no  mind  to  lose  him. 

Through  the  summer  host  and  guest  were  hard  at  work  with 
their  respective  secretaries.  Both  knew  at  least  one  of  the 
receipts  for  happiness.  Prussia  was  heaven.  Only — only — there 
was  a delightful  earth  called  Paris  where  d’Argental  was  doing 
his  vigorous  best  to  get  the  authorities  to  permit  the  performance 


JEt.  57] 


THE  EIFT  WITHIN  THE  LUTE 


231 


of  1 Mahomet  ’ — an  earth  from  which  he  wrote  on  August  6 of 
this  1751,  one  last,  long,  pleading  appeal  to  Voltaire  to  return, 
while  he  could  yet  return,  with  honour.  Madame  Denis, 
resolved  not  to  join  her  uncle  in  Prussia,  added  her  entreaties. 
The  foolish  woman,  who  had  a tendresse  for  handsome  young 
Baculard  d’Arnaud  in  the  days  when  he  was  her  uncle’s  protege 
in  Paris,  was  now  coquetting  with  a certain  Marquis  de 
Ximenes,  or  Chimenes,  as  Voltaire  called  him,  and  less  minded 
than  ever  to  leave  the  capital. 

The  wild  La  Mettrie,  too,  was  for  ever  calling  on  Voltaire — 
volubly  homesick  for  Paris  himself.  Voltaire  would  have  gone, 
perhaps ; but  in  August  his  ‘ Louis  XIV.’  was  actually  in  the 
press  of  Berlin,  he  had  a hundred  prospective  engagements,  and 
— he  thought  Frederick  was  his  friend. 

It  was  at  the  end  of  this  same  month  of  August  that  La 
Mettrie,  calling  on  Voltaire,  swore  to  him  that  he  had  heard 
Frederick  say  of  him : ‘ I shall  want  him  at  the  most  another 
year:  one  squeezes  the  orange  and  throws  away  the  rind.’ 
Voltaire  would  not  believe  the  story.  Le  Mettrie  redoubled  his 
oaths.  Voltaire  wrote  the  scene  to  Madame  Denis  on 
September  2 in  his  quick,  vivid  fashion.  ‘ Do  you  believe  it  ? 
Ought  I to  believe  it  . . . after  sixteen  years  of  goodness  . . . 
when  I am  sacrificing  all  for  him  ? . . . I shall  be  justly  con- 
demned for  having  yielded  to  so  many  caresses.  . . . What  shall 
I do  ? Ignore  what  La  Mettrie  has  told  me,  tell  nobody  but  you, 
forget  it,  wait?'  If  Voltaire  thought  he  really  could  do  these 
things,  he  could  have  known  little  of  his  own  character.  He 
did  try  to  forget.  But  that  rind  of  an  orange  ! It  rankled, 
it  rankled.  Could  Frederick  have  said  it?  Impossible!  But 
he  had  written  the  ‘ Anti-Machiavelli  ’ and  spilled  blood  in  war 
like  water ; condoled  piously  with  Darget  and  made  an  epigram 
on  his  wife  ; caressed  d’Arnaud  and  ruined  him.  It  made  one 
thoughtful. 

On  September  80  ‘ Mahomet 5 was  successfully  performed  in 
Paris.  That  was  another  voice  urging  Voltaire  to  return. 

‘ The  orange  rind  haunts  my  dreams,1  he  wrote  to  Madame 
Denis  again,  on  October  29.  6 I try  not  to  believe  it.  . . . We 

go  to  sup  with  the  King  and  are  gay  enough  sometimes.  The 
man  who  fell  from  the  top  of  a steeple  and  finding  the  falling 


232  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1751 

through  the  air  soft,  said,  “ Good,  provided  it  lasts,”  is  not  a little 
as  I am.’ 

On  November  11  the  tale-bearer,  La  Mettrie,  died  from  having 
consumed  a whole  pate  (composed  of  eagle  and  pheasant,  lard, 
pork  and  ginger  !)  at  Lord  TyrconneTs  house.  He  would  make 
mischief  no  more.  But,  then,  he  could  not  undo  the  mischief 
he  had  made.  ‘I  should  like  to  have  asked  La  Mettrie  when 
he  was  dying/  Voltaire  wrote  sombrely  to  Madame  Denis  on 
Christmas  Eve,  ‘ about  that  rind  of  an  orange.  That  good  soul, 
about  to  appear  before  God,  would  not  have  dared  to  lie.  There 
is  a great  appearance  that  he  spoke  the  truth.  . . . The  King 
told  me  yesterday  . . . that  he  would  give  me  a province  to  have 
me  near  him.  That  does  not  look  like  the  rind  of  an  orange.’ 

Between  doubting  and  hoping,  mistrusting,  fearing  he  knew 
not  what,  in  health  always  wretched  (‘  my  distempers  . . . make 
me  utterly  unfit  for  kings  ’),  homesick,  uneasy,  longing  at  once 
to  go  away  and  to  be  persuaded  to  stay,  Voltaire  spent  his  second 
winter — in  heaven.  Hirsch  had  made  the  first  something  very 
like  pandemonium.  But  there  was  life,  interest,  excitement  in  a 
fight.  The  dull  anxiety,  the  ugly  care  to  wake  up  to  in  the  dead 
nights  and  the  dark  mornings — these  were  worse  a thousand 
times.  Well  for  Voltaire  that  now,  even  more  than  ever,  he  had 
to  comfort  him  that  best  relief  from  all  the  fears,  doubts, 
problems,  and  presentiments  of  life — hard  work. 


Mt.  57] 


253 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE  QUARREL  WITH  MAUPERTUIS 

In  December  1751  there  appeared  in  Berlin,  in  two  volumes 
octavo  and  anonymously,  4 The  Century  of  Louis  XI V.’  by 
VoRaire.  ^ 

f The  earliest  idea  of  it  was  conceived  by  a wild  Arouet  oih 
twenty  listening  to  personal  recollections  of  the  Sun  King  from 
the  old  Marquis  de  Saint- Ange  at  Fontainebleau.] 

Arouet  had  heard  with  his  own  ears  the  strange  tales  told  in 
Paris  at  that  monarch’s  death.  In  1719,  when  he  was  five-and- 
twenty  and  falling  in  brief  love  with  the  exquisite  Marechale  de 
Villars,  her  husband  recounted  him  more  anecdotes  of  that 
magnificent  and  miserable  age.  To  write  it  had  been  a relief 
from  Emilie’s  shrewish  tongue  and  inconvenient  emotions,  at 
Cirey.  It  was  Voltaire’s  4 chief  employment  ’ in  that  first  lonely 
summer  there,  before  she  joined  him.  He  worked  hard  at  it  in 
Brussels.  He  found  in  it  consolation  for  his  mistress’s  infidelity  : 
and  for  her  death./  It  involved  him  in  an  enormous  amount  of 
reading,  and  unparalleled  labours  in  research,  j Since  he  came  to 
Prussia,  he  hardly  wrote  a letter  without  alluding  to  it.  He 
found  in  it  balm  for  the  wounds  inflicted  by  a d’Arnaud,  a 
Hirsch,  and  a king.  As  it  drew  nearer  completion,  his  interest 
and  excitement  in  it  deepened  daily.  4 1 am  absorbed  in 
Louis  XIV.’  4 1 shall  be  the  Historiographer  of  France  in  spite 
of  envy.?  Before  the  author  had  finished  reading  the  proofs,  a 
pirated  edition  of  his  work  appeared  in  Holland  and  elsewhere. 
There  was  the  usual  scramble  among  the  publishers  for  the 
profits.  Voltaire  appealed  to  Frederick  ; and  wrote  to  Falkener, 
in  English,  trying,  through  him,  to  get  a correct  edition  circu- 
lated in  England.  His  efforts  were  astonishingly  fruitless.  An 
author  had  then  not  only  no  right  to  the  moneys  his  brain  had 


234 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1751-52 


\ 


</\A' 


earned,  but  was  not  even  allowed  the  privilege  of  correcting  the 
work  of  that  brain  : and  the  more  famous  the  author  the  worse 
his  chances  in  both  respects.  No  anonymity  could  conceal  a 
Voltaire. 

Boyer  prohibited  ‘The  Century  of  Louis  XIV.’  in  France, 
and  its  circulation  in  that  country  was  enormousj  The  first 
authorised  edition  printed  in  Berlin  was  sold  out  in  a few  days. 
Eight  new  editions  appeared  in  eight  months.  In  those  times, 
when  to  be  educated  was  a rich  man’s  privilege  and  not  a pauper’s 
right,  such  a success  was  unique.  That  it  was  deserved  is  proved 
by  the  fact  that  it  is  still  the  most  famous  history  of  that  reign. 

Voltaire  had  written  it,  as  he  always  wrote,  as  a free  man. 
But  this  time  he  had  written,  as  he  did  not  always  write,  as  a 
free  man  who  has  no  desire  to  offend  the  prejudices  of  the 
slave-dealers.  He  himself  loved  the  glitter  of  that  Golden  Age  : 
its  burning  and  shining  lights  of  literary  genius,  and  the  glory 
it  gave  to  France.  So  far  as  he  could  be  true  and  tactful,  he 
was  tactful.  He  did  not  run  amok  at  abuses  with  that  ‘ strident 
laugh  ’ which  has  been  said  to  fill  the  eighteenth  century,  as  he 
had  run  amok  at  them  in  that  ‘Voice  of  the  Sage  and  the 
People  ’ — and  in  a hundred  of  his  writings  a thousand  times 
before.  When  he  wrote  the  latter  part  of  the  book  in  Prussia,  it 
was  in  his  mind  always  that  he  might  some  day — one  day — 
soon — who  could  tell  ? — be  not  sorry  to  come  back  to  France.  If 
he  could  still  tell  the  truth  and  not  offend  the  authorities  ! \Jf 
any  man  could  have  done  it,  that  man  was  Voltaire.  There  is 
no  writer  in  the  world  who  so  well  knows,  if  he  chooses,  how  to 
put  blame  as  if  it  were  praise,  to  turn  censure  into  a dainty  com- 
pliment, and  to  trick  out  harsh  realities  in  a charming  dress.  J 

But  now,  as  too  often  before,  his  reputation  damned  hifii  in 
advance.  Besides,  did  he  not  give  the  place  of,  and  the  witnesses 
to,  that  secret  marriage  of  Louis  XIV.  and  Madame  de  Maintenon  ? 
How  imprudent ! Some  patriots  ‘ raised  a noble  clamour  ’ against 
him  for  having  praised  Marlborough  and  Eugene,  and  a great 
party  of  churchmen  condemned  him  for  having  gently  laughed 
at  Jansenism  and  Molinism. 

The  book  was  full  of  reason  ; that  in  itself  was  enough.  ‘ My 
book  is  prohibited  among  my  dear  countrymen,’  wrote  Voltaire 
to  Falkener  on  January  27,  1752,  ‘because  I have  spoken  the 


Mt.  57-58]  THE  QUARREL  WITH  MAUPERTUIS 


235 


truth.’  And  again,  to  President  Henault,  4 I have  tried  to  raise 
a monument  to  truth  and  my  country,  an<^  I hope  they  will  not 
take  the  stones  of  the  edifice  to  stone  me.’  \JThe  style,  too,  of  the 
book,  that  style  which  has  kept  it  alive,  fresh,  and  vigorous  for 
a hundred  and  fifty  years,  made  it  offensive  in  the  nostrils  of  the 
solemn  and  approved  historians  of  the  period  who  held  that  an 
author  cannot  be  learned  without  being  dull,  and  if  he  is  readable 
can  be  by  no  means  worth  reading,  j 4 Louis  XIV.’  is  a bright 
example  of  Voltaire’s  own  aphorism,  4 A serious  book  should 
not  be  too  seriously  written.’  Though  he  had  spent  years  of  his 
life,  and  endless  trouble  and  activity  in  gathering  his  informa- 
tion, he  wrote  with  the  same  spontaneous  life  and  vigour  as  he 
wrote  the  contes  he  read  to  the  Duchesse  du  Maine  and  her  gay 
court ; with  not  less  inspiration  than  he  flung  on  to  paper  in  the 
morning  the 4 Henriade  ’ he  had  dreamt  at  night  on  his  prison  bed 
in  the  Bastille.  In  a word,  4 1 tried  to  move  my  readers,  even  in 
history.’  His  own  countrymen  now  understand  him  better  ; but 
it  is  to  be  feared  many  of  his  foreign  students  still  suspect  the 
fidelity  of  his  facts  because  he  puts  them  so  gracefully,  and  fear 
that  a sense  of  humour  and  a sparkling  style  are  incompatible  with 
sound  judgment  and  deep  learning,  and  that  if  an  historian  is 
really  clever  he  must  prove  it  by  being  excessively  dull. 

The  success  of  the  book  must  have  exceeded  its  author’s  eager 
hopes.  It  delighted  England.  D’Alembert,  in  his  lodging 
over  the  glazier’s  shop,  and  all  the  nobility  of  intellect  in  Paris, 
rejoiced  in  it.  What  matter  if  the  Court  frowned?  Pirated 
editions  appeared  in  Edinburgh,  as  well  as  London,  Prussia,  and 
Holland.  The  publishers  were  scrambling  wildly  for  the  pro- 
ceeds. The  author  did  at  last  get  something — and  shrugged  his 
shoulders  and  was  not  ill-satisfied.  After  all,  he  had  a better 
success  than  a monetary  one.  j Lord  Chesterfield  called  the  book 
4 the  history  of  the  human  mind  written  by  a man  of  genius.’ 
Condorcet  spoke  of  it  as  4 the  only  readable  history  of  the  age.’ 
Henault  declared  its  author  4 le  plus  bel  esprit  ’ of  the  century. 
4 Louis  XIV.’  excites  men’s  curiosity  at  every  page.  If  the  author 
had  been  deprived  of  the  Historiographership  of  France,  he  was 
the  Historiographer  not  the  less. 

4 Louis  XIV.,’  and  correcting  Frederick’s  works,  were  not 
all  of  Voltaire’s  literary  work  in  Prussia.  He  was  always  com- 


236 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1752 


posing  bagatelles  and  compliments  for  the  two  Queens  and  the 
Princesses.  He  wrote  Frederick — in  the  room  next  to  him — gay 
verses  as  well  as  many  letters  : and  was  also  busy  with  his 
famous  philosophical  poem  called  ‘ Natural  Law/  not  published 
till  1756.  He  began  here  his  great  £ Philosophical  Dictionary  9 ; 
and  was  further  fanning  the  flame,  by  innumerable  suggestions, 
of  that  light-bringer  of  the  eighteenth  century,  that  torch  in  a 
darkness  which  could  be  felt,  the  1 Encyclopaedia  ’ of  Diderot  and 
d’Alembert.  Its  preface  appeared  in  1750  and  its  first  volume 
in  1751.  Voltaire  called  it  ‘the  dictionary  of  the  universe’ — 
‘ the  bureau  of  human  learning,’  and  should  have  found  in  its 
splendid  audacity — a quality  so  dear  to  his  soul — an  antidote  for 
many  afflictions.  Perhaps  he  did.  It  was  never  because  he  had 
idle  hands  that  Satan  found  them  mischief  still  to  do.  But  he 
was  homesick.  He  was  in  that  pitiable  state  of  body  which  makes 
the  mind  irritable  and  despondent.  Paris  had  been  stormy 
enough.  But  here  one  lived  always  over  a volcano.  That  orange 
rind  rankled  still.  If  one  royal  hand  caressed,  there  was  the 
other  that  might  scratch  at  any  moment.  The  never-sleeping 
anxiety  affected  Voltaire’s  vif  temper,  just  as  anxiety  affects  the 
temper  of  lesser  persons.  He  was  in  a mood  when  he  was  sure 
to  be  offended  by  someone.  This  time  the  person  was  Maupertuis. 

Born  in  1698  in  Saint-Malo,  Maupertuis  was  four  years 
younger  than  Voltaire,  and  in  his  precocious  intelligence,  ardent 
imagination,  and  unquenchable  thirst  for  knowledge,  not  unlike 
him.  But  there  the  likeness  stopped.  Maupertuis  studied  in 
Paris,  and  then  became  that  rare  anomaly,  a s<mm£-soldier.  He 
was  also  elected  a member  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences  ; and  in 
1728  spent  six  months  in  England,  where  he  was  made  a member 
of  the  Royal  Society  and  imbibed  Newtonian  opinions.  In  1740, 
after  an  Arctic  expedition  which  roused  much  public  interest,  he 
was  made  by  Frederick  President  of  the  Berlin  Academy,  that  he 
might  form  it  ‘ as  you  alone  can  form  it.’  Maupertuis  married 
one  of  the  Queen-Mother’s  maids  of  honour,  and  lived  in  a fine 
house  in  Berlin  close  to  the  Royal  Park,  which  his  zoological 
tastes  led  him  to  turn  into  a kind  of  menagerie.  Precise, 
pompous,  and  positive ; boring  society  with  his  worrying 
exactness  upon  trifles  even  more  than  society  bored  him  ; in- 
ordinately vain,  and  with  a sensitive  temper  made  yet  more 


MOREAU  DE  MAUPERTUIS. 

From  an  Engraving  after  a Painting  by  Tourmere , 


M t.  58]  THE  QUARREL  WITH  MAUPERTUIS 


237 


inflammable  by  brandy  and  self-love  ; acutely  conscious  of  his 
dignity,  and  without  any  sense  of  humour,  the  ex-tutor  of 
Madame  du  Chatelet  was  the  sort  of  person  with  whom,  sooner 
or  later,  her  lover  was  sure  to  disagree.  Added  to  these  facts, 
Voltaire’s  pension  from  King  Frederick  exceeded  that  of  Mauper- 
tuis  by  two  thousand  crowns ; and  while  Maupertuis  was  socially 
dull,  at  the  King’s  suppers  Voltaire’s  conversation  was  even  more 
brilliant  than  his  writings. 

On  October  28,  1750,  the  naturalist  Buffon  had  written  to  a 
friend,  ‘ Between  ourselves,  Voltaire  and  Maupertuis  are  not  made 
to  live  in  the  same  room.’ 

The  first  tiff  between  the  uncongenial  pair  took  place,  in 
point  of  fact,  in  that  very  October  of  1750,  the  autumn  after 
Voltaire’s  arrival  in  Prussia.  There  was  a vacant  chair  in  the 
Berlin  Academy.  Maupertuis  wished  it  given  to  d’Argens — 
Voltaire,  further  seeing,  to  that  Raynal,  already  his  friend,  after- 
wards the  famous  philosopher  and  historian.  Voltaire  won,  with 
the  help  of  Frederick ; and  Maupertuis  was  left  surly  and  jealous. 
In  the  Hirsch  affair  Voltaire  asked  his  help,  and  Maupertuis 
refused  it.  Maupertuis  read  ‘ Louis  XIV.’  and  compared  it  to 
‘ the  gambols  of  a child  ’ — heavy  Maupertuis  who  could  not  have 
gambolled  to  save  his  soul. 

Then,  at  the  end  of  the  year  1751,  a certain  book  entitled 
‘ Mes  Pensees,’  by  a young  French  adventurer  called  La  Beau- 
melle,  made  some  little  stir  in  Berlin.  The  ‘ Thoughts  ’ were 
desultory,  unequal,  and  very  ill  put  together.  D’Argenson  wrote 
of  the  book  that  half  of  it  was  excellent,  a quarter  mediocre, 
and  the  other  quarter  bad.  From  the  excellent  part  he  quoted  a 
shrewd  axiom — 1 Happy  the  State  where  the  king  has  no  mistress, 
provided  that  he  also  has  no  confessor  ’ ! Two  Berlin  readers, 
at  the  least,  included  in  the  bad  quarter  this  extraordinary  sen- 
tence : 1 There  have  been  greater  poets  than  Voltaire,  but  never 
one  so  well  paid.  . . . The  King  of  Prussia  overwhelms  men  of 
letters  with  kindness  for  precisely  the  same  reasons  that  a little 
German  prince  overwhelms  with  kindness  a jester  or  a buffoon.’ 
The  passage  was  the  joke  of  one  of  the  royal  suppers.  But  if 
Frederick  and  Voltaire  laughed  at  it,  it  was  not  the  less  a joke 
that  left  a taste  in  the  mouth.  Then  up  comes  La  Beaumelle  to 
Berlin.  On  November  1,  1751,  he  calls  on  the  great  Voltaire ; 


238 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIKE 


[1752 


and  Voltaire,  though  he  asks  him  to  dinner  and  wastes  on  him 
four  hours  of  his  time,  treats  him  with  a civil  chilliness  which 
surprises  La  Beaumelle,  who  appears  to  have  no  idea  that  Voltaire 
has  seen  those  ‘ Pensees  7 ; and  attributes  his  cold  manner  to  an 
indigestion. 

La  Beaumelle  is  much  with  Lord  Tyrconnel,  seeks  to  gain 
the  good  graces  of  Darget,  perhaps  even  to  sup  with  the  King. 
He  has  owned  to  an  admiration  for  Maupertuis.  Voltaire  bethinks 
himself  presently  of  a little  ruse  to  rid  his  path  of  this  bramble. 
‘ Will  you  lend  me  your  “ Thoughts,”  M.  Beaumelle  ? 7 Beau- 
melle lends  the  book  ; and  after  three  days  Voltaire  returns  it 
with  the  page  containing  the  offensive  remark  upon  himself  and 
the  King  turned  down. 

But  La  Beaumelle  did  not  take  the  hint. 

On  December  7, 1751,  the  King  and  Voltaire  arrived  in  Berlin 
from  Potsdam,  and  foolish  La  Beaumelle  went  again  to  see 
Voltaire.  He  attempted  to  explain  away  that  remarkable  sen- 
tence. But  it  was  hardly  capable  of  a favourable  interpretation. 
Voltaire,  on  La  Beaumelle’s  own  showing,  behaved  with  self- 
control  and  dignity. 

‘ Who  showed  the  passage  to  the  King  ? 7 says  La  Beaumelle. 

‘ Darget/  answers  Voltaire. 

So  La  Beaumelle  goes  to  Darget.  ‘ You  had  better  leave 
Berlin,7  the  prudent  secretary  advises.  Then  La  Beaumelle 
seeks,  and  finds,  better  consolation  in  Maupertuis.  ‘ Voltaire 
gave  the  passage  an  offensive  interpretation,7  says  the  President. 
1 Send  the  King  a copy  of  your  book.7  But  though  La  Beau- 
melle not  only  did  this  but  addressed  petitions  to  the  King,  he 
received  no  answer  and  was  not  invited  to  the  suppers. 

In  a sentimental  affair  of  La  Beaumelle7s,  which  was  the  next 
scene  in  his  adventures,  Voltaire  took  his  enemy’s  part  good- 
naturedly  enough,  and  did  his  best  to  get  Beaumelle  out  of  the 
prison  into  which  an  injured  husband  had  thrown  him.  He  had 
some  reason  for  wishing  to  conciliate  the  foolish  young  man. 
La  Beaumelle  had  in  his  possession  autograph  letters  of  Madame 
de  Maintenon  which  would  have  been  of  infinite  value  to  the 
author  of  ‘ The  Century  of  Louis  XIV.7  At  their  first  interview 
Voltaire  had  asked  to  look  at  them ; and  La  Beaumelle  had  made 
excuses.  The  persevering  Voltaire  tried  again  and  again  to 


Mx.  58]  THE  QUARREL  WITH  MAUPERTUIS 


239 


attain  his  aim  ; and  at  last  after  a furious  interview,  the  two 
parted  for  ever,  La  Beaumelle  crying  bitterly  that  his  hatred 
would  long  outlive  Voltaire's  verses.  Voltaire  had  not  obtained 
the  de  Maintenon  letters  ; and  La  Beaumelle,  after  leaving  Berlin 
in  May  1752,  revenged  himself  on  his  enemy  by  bringing  out  a 
pirated  edition  of  ‘ Louis  XIV.’  which  positively  ran  parallel  to 
Voltaire’s  own,  and  to  which  La  Beaumelle  added  ‘ Remarks  ’ 
offensive  to  the  author  and  dealing  also,  with  a dangerous  freedom, 
with  the  Royal  Family  of  France. 

To  be  sure,  Voltaire  was  fair  game ; but  the  House  of 
Bourbon ! 

In  a very  little  while  M.  La  Beaumelle  was  expiating  his 
imprudence  in  prison. 

Throughout  the  affair  Voltaire  seems  only  to  have  taken 
offence,  and  the  audacious  Beaumelle  to  have  given  it.  He  was 
nothing  after  all.  He  might  rot  in  the  Bastille  and  be  forgotten. 
He  had  no  significance,  except  that  Maupertuis  defended  him. 

In  the  spring  of  1752,  while  the  affair  of  the  ‘ Pensees  ’ was 
amusing  Berlin,  events  of  importance  to  Voltaire  had  occurred 
both  in  Paris  and  in  the  King’s  entourage  in  Berlin. 

On  February  24,  ‘ Rome  Sauvee,’  much  altered  and  improved 
by  its  author,  was  successfully  performed  in  Paris  through  the 
exertions  of  d’Argental  and  Madame  Denis.  The  niece,  not 
content  with  superintending  Uncle  Voltaire’s  plays,  had  written 
one  herself  called  ‘ The  Punished  Coquette.’  Voltaire  was  in 
agonies  for  fear  the  thing  should  be  a failure ; but  his  feelings 
were  spared  and  it  was  not  performed. 

On  March  2 Lord  Tyrconnel  died  in  Berlin,  and  on  March  4 
Darget  left  the  King’s  service ; nominally,  and  perhaps  in  part 
really,  for  his  health’s  sake.  But  he  was  glad  to  go,  and  he 
came  back  no  more.  Voltaire  lost  in  him  a very  faithful  friend. 
‘ I ought  to  go  too,’  he  wrote  thoughtfully. 

Then  Longchamp  had  been  triumphantly  discovered  by 
Madame  Denis  committing  the  unpardonable  sin  of  copying  his 
master’s  manuscripts  with  two  accomplices  who  had  been  ser- 
vants in  the  employ  of  Madame  du  Chatelet.  Madame  Denis 
abused  him  for  her  own  satisfaction,  and  exposed  him  for  his 
master’s. 

Was  it  only  because  Longchamp  knew  too  much  and  had  in 


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[1752 


his  possession  dangerous  writings  which  were  more  likely  to  be 
coaxed  than  to  be  scolded  out  of  him,  that  his  master  wrote  to 
him  very  gently  and  offered  pardon  in  return  for  the  truth  ? 
The  goodness  and  generosity  which  made  all  his  servants  love 
him  must  have  had  some  foundation  in  fact.  On  March  30  of 
this  1752  Longchamp  replied  penitently  and  burnt  the  copies  he 
had  made.  Voltaire  gave  him  a handsome  sum  of  money  over 
and  above  the  wages  due  to  him,  and  Longchamp  became  a map 
and  chart  dealer.  Twenty-six  years  later  he  came  to  see  his  old 
master,  wThen  he  was  on  his  last  visit  to  Paris. 

But  the  danger  that  Longchamp’s  perfidy  had  threatened  had 
been  no  light  one  to  the  man  who  had  already  begun  to  look  on 
that  very  sensitive  and  touchy  French  capital  as  a possible  refuge, 
and  was  soon  to  find  Prussia  too  hot  to  hold  him. 

Before  the  end  of  the  year  1751  Frederick  had  begun  to 
intercept  and  keep  copies  of  Voltaire’s  and  Madame  Denis’s 
letters.  Voltaire  wrote  bitterly  that  the  Golden  Key  tore  his 
pocket,  that  the  ribbon  of  the  Order  was  a halter  round  his  neck, 
that  nothing  in  Prussia  gave  him  a grain  of  happiness.  ‘ I have 
lost  my  teeth  and  my  five  senses,’  he  wrote  on  February  6,  1752, 

1 and  the  sixth  is  leaving  me  at  a gallop.  I doubt  if  even  “ Rome 
Sauvee  ” will  save  me He  was  sick  now  with  such  a home- 
sickness as  only  a Frenchman  knows.  All  these  things,  taken 
together,  doubled  his  natural  imprudence. 

Before  La  Beaumelle  left  Berlin  in  May  had  begun  a quarrel, 
into  which  Voltaire  was  to  plunge  headlong,  between  Maupertuis 
and  the  mathematician  Koenig,  who  had  stayed  and  worked  for 
two  years  with  Madame  du  Chatelet  at  Cirey. 

Koenig  was  a member  of  the  Berlin  Academy  and  a strong 
partisan  of  Leibnitz,  as  Voltaire  and  Maupertuis  were  of  Newton  ; 
but  was  all  the  same  a warm  friend  and  admirer  of  Maupertuis, 
whom  in  September  1750  he  had  visited  in  Berlin.  It  was  not 
unnatural  that  when  these  two  partisans  came  to  discuss  Leibnitz 
and  Newton  they  should  quarrel.  They  did  quarrel.  Koenig, 
however,  apologised  handsomely  to  the  touchy  President,  and 
returned  to  Holland  where  he  lived.  There  he  wrote  an  essay  on 
the  subject  of  their  dispute — the  principle  of  the  least  action — 
or  the  theory,  which  Maupertuis  claimed  to  have  discovered,  that 
Nature  is  a great  economist  and  works  with  the  fewest  materials 


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241 


with  which  she  can  possibly  attain  her  purpose.  Koenig  dis- 
proved this  theory,  and  quoted  in  his  support  a letter  written  by 
his  dear  Leibnitz.  He  submitted  the  essay  to  Maupertuis,  who 
apparently  did  not  read  it,  for  he  sanctioned  its  publication,  and 
it  appeared  in  March  1751,  in  Latin.  Then  Maupertuis  did  read 
it,  and  was  deeply  offended.  Produce  these  letters  of  Leibnitz 
from  which  you  quote,  M.  Koenig  ! I am  certain  Leibnitz  is  of 
my  opinion  in  the  matter ! Produce  the  originals  ! But  only 
copies  and  not  the  original  letters  were  forthcoming.  They  were 
undoubtedly  genuine.  Every  page  bore  the  unmistakable  stamp 
of  the  Leibnitzian  style.  But  there  are  none  so  blind  as  those 
who  won’t  see. 

On  April  18,  1752,  Maupertuis,  as  President,  called  together 
a meeting  of  the  Academy,  and  caused  Koenig  to  be  expelled 
therefrom  as  a forger. 

Then  Voltaire,  hard  at  work  at  Potsdam,  looked  up  from  his 
books,  thrust  aside  La  Beaumelle,  Darget,  and  those  home  worries 
of  Madame  Denis  and  Longchamp,  and  must  needs  go  down  to 
the  shore  just  to  see  the  storm  coming  up  and  wet  his  imprudent 
feet  a little  in  the  surf.  ‘ I am  not  yet  well  informed,’  he  wrote 
to  Madame  Denis  on  May  22,  ‘ as  to  the  details  of  the  beginning 
of  this  quarrel.  Maupertuis  is  at  Berlin,  ill  from  having  drunk 
a little  too  much  brandy.’  Soon  after  June  8 the  Berlin 
Academy,  to  which  Koenig  had  appealed,  ratified  its  shameful 
sentence.  By  now  Voltaire  at  Potsdam  was  chafing  and  snorting 
to  get  into  the  battle.  There  were  so  many  spurs  to  urge  him 
there  ! One  day  he  had  been  giving  a dinner-party  at  which 
Maupertuis  was  a guest.  Voltaire  airily  complimented  the  Pre- 
sident on  a pamphlet  he  had  written  on  Happiness — Voltaire 
having  really  found  ‘ Happiness  ’ very  dry  and  depressing.  ‘ It 
has  given  me  great  pleasure — a few  obscurities  excepted — 
which  we  will  discuss  later.’  1 Obscurities ! ’ cries  the  touchy 
President.  ‘ Only  for  you,  Sir  ! ’ And  Voltaire,  with  his  lean 
hand  on  the  presidential  shoulder  and  his  eyes  uncommonly 
bright  and  malicious,  answers,  ‘ Je  vous  estime,  mon  President ; 
you  want  to  fight — you  shall.  In  the  meantime,  let  us  go  to 
dinner.’ 

On  July  24  he  wrote  Madame  Denis  another  little  story. 
Maupertuis  had  said  that  the  King  having  sent  Voltaire  his 

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242 


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[1752 


verses  to  correct,  Voltaire  had  cried  ‘ Will  he  never  leave  off 
giving  me  his  dirty  linen  to  wash  ? * And  Maupertuis  had  told 
the  anecdote,  ‘ in  the  strictest  confidence,’  to  ten  or  twelve  people. 
The  King  had  heard  of  it,  of  course.  Then,  after  the  death  of 
La  Mettrie,  had  not  Maupertuis  declared  that  Voltaire  had  said 
that  the  post  of  the  King’s  Atheist  was  vacant?  True,  that 
story  did  not  reach  the  King.  But  every  story  was  a whip  to 
goad  Voltaire  into  the  forefront  of  the  fray.  He  hated  tyranny 
and  wrong  wherever  he  found  them.  But  being  human,  and 
chafing  and  longing  to  fight  with  him,  he  hated  Maupertuis’ 
tyranny  above  other  persons’.  On  September  18,  there  appeared 
an  anonymous  pamphlet  defending  Koenig  and  entitled  ‘ A Reply 
from  an  Academician  of  Berlin  to  an  Academician  of  Paris.’  It 
was  supposed  to  be  from  the  pen  of  Voltaire — the  first  arrow 
from  his  quiver.  A few  days  later  Koenig  produced  his  own 
‘ Appeal  to  the  Public,’  which  easily  proves  his  case  to  any  fair- 
minded  person.  There  was  one  man,  however,  who  meant  to 
stand  by  his  President,  as  his  President,  and  to  defend  him  right 
or  wrong.  King  Frederick  would  not  even  read  Koenig’s 
4 Appeal.’  By  October  15  he  had  himself  produced  a 1 Letter  to 
the  Public,’  which  was  nothing,  said  Voltaire,  but  an  attack  on 
Koenig  and  all  his  friends.  6 He  calls  those  friends  fools,  jealous, 
and  dishonest.’  Voltaire  wrote  an  account  of  the  thing  to  his 
niece,  in  which  he  spoke  out  as  only  a Voltaire  could  speak.  In 
the  letter  are  these  ominous  words  : 4 Unluckily  for  me,  I also  am 
an  author,  and  in  the  opposite  camp  to  the  King.  I have  no 
sceptre,  but  I have  a pen .’ 

Then  Maupertuis  produced  an  extraordinary  series  of  letters 
which  certainly  do  not  read  like  the  composition  of  a sane 
person.  He  advocated  in  them  the  maddest  scientific  schemes, 
such  as  blowing  up  one  of  the  Pyramids  with  gunpowder  to  see 
why  they  were  built ; and  making  an  immense  hole  in  the  earth 
to  find  out  what  it  contains. 

In  a preface  he  had  very  unpromisingly  stated  that  he  should 
follow  no  sequence  or  order,  but  write  on  the  impulse  of  the 
moment,  and  no  doubt  contradict  himself ! Voltaire  wrote 
that  Maupertuis  had  previously  been  in  a lunatic  asylum  and 
was  now  mad.  It  did  seem  as  if  drink  and  vanity  had  turned 
the  poor  wretch’s  brain.  But  Frederick  stood  by  his  President ; 


JEt.  58]  THE  QUARREL  WITH  MAUPERTUIS 


243 


and  on  November  5,  while  recommending  him  rest  and  repose, 
gravely  congratulated  him  on  his  book. 

On  November  17,  from  that  room  looking  on  to  the  terrace  at 
Sans-Souci,  Voltaire  wrote  a letter  to  Koenig,  easy,  graceful,  and 
not  exactly  impolite  to  Maupertuis,  but  explaining  that  that 
solemn  Infallibility  had  been  in  the  wrong.  As  for  those 
twenty-three  scientific  letters,  why  one  must  pity,  not  blame, 
him  for  them.  And  no  doubt,  M.  Koenig,  the  same  mental 
misfortune  which  made  him  write  them,  inspired  his  conduct 
to  you ! 

It  was  a dainty  glove  thrown  down  ; but  it  was  a declaration 
of  war  not  the  less. 

Frederick  was  far  too  shrewd  and  sane  a person  not  to  know 
very  well  who  had  right  and  reason  on  his  side  in  such  a dis- 
pute. He  and  Voltaire  continued  to  meet  as  friends,  and  supped 
together  as  of  old.  Now  Tyrconnel  and  La  Mettrie  were  dead, 
Darget  gone  away,  and  Maupertuis  too  sick  and  sore  to  attend 
them,  the  suppers  would  have  been  small  and  dull  indeed  with- 
out Voltaire.  He  had  been  always  the  real  soul  of  them.  At 
one,  only  this  last  September,  the  daring  idea  of  4 The  Philo- 
sophical Dictionary  ’ had  been  started  ; and  in  a day  or  two  he 
had  sent  the  King  that  matchlessly  audacious  first  article, 
4 Abraham/  which  would  have  made  the  Pope  laugh  and  might 
have  made  a Frederick  forget  that  4 Reply  from  an  Academician 
of  Berlin’  which  Voltaire  had  written,  under  a thinly  veiled 
anonymity,  but  a few  days  earlier.  But  though  the  chain  which 
bound  the  royal  Damon  to  his  Pythias  still  held,  it  was  weak  in 
every  link.  Voltaire  declared  of  himself  that  he  was  a hundred 
years  old — that  the  suppers  were  suppers  of  Damocles — the  world 
a shipwreck — 4 sauve  qui  peut ! ’ He  was,  in  fact,  too  wretched  to 
fear  anything,  and  so  ready  to  dare  all.  There  was  a pause.  The 
tiger  crouched  a moment  before  it  sprang,  and  then  leapt  on  Mau- 
pertuis in  the  4 Diatribe  of  Doctor  Akakia.’ 

There  is  no  more  scathing  and  burning  satire  in  literature. 
The  deadly  minuteness  of  Swift’s  malign  and  awful  irony  is  not 
so  terrible  as  the  pungent  mockery  of  this  jester  who  laughed, 
and  laughed ; looked  up  and  saw  his  victim  writhing  and  mad 
with  impotent  rage,  and  held  his  sides  and  laughed  the  more. 
The  great  English-Irishman  at  least  paid  his  victims  the 

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244 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1752 


compliment  of  taking  them  in  some  sort  seriously ; of  bringing 
great  and  terrible  weapons  to  slay  them ; and  gave  them  the 
poor  satisfaction  of  feeling  like  martyrs  if  they  wished.  But 
Voltaire  made  Maupertuis  a byword  and  a derision  ; the  sport  of 
fools,  the  laughing-stock  of  Europe : a buffoon,  a jest,  a carica- 
ture : such  that  men  seeing,  stopped,  beheld  open-mouthed,  and 
then  laughed  to  convulsions.  Akakia  means  guilelessness  ; and 
Akakia  is  a physician  who  takes  the  remarkable  effusions  of 
Maupertuis  with  a serious  innocence,  very  deadly ; who  asks  the 
most  simple  questions  in  the  world ; and  turns  upon  the  Presi- 
dent’s theories  the  remorseless  logic  of  the  gayest  and  easiest 
commonsense.  Read  a hundred  and  fifty  years  after,  when  of 
necessity  many  allusions  must  be  missed  and  the  point  of  many 
a jest  be  lost,  ‘ Akakia  ’ is  still  one  of  the  wittiest  productions  in 
the  French  language. 

There  could  have  been  no  style  better  than  Voltaire’s  for 
making  Pomposity  mad.  One  can  still  see  the  ‘ sublime  Per- 
petual President  ’ writhing  under  that  pitiless  mockery  and  that 
infectious  laugh  of  malicious  delight.  The  wickedest,  cleverest 
little  picador  in  all  the  world  goaded  this  great,  lumbering, 
heavy-footed  old  bull  to  impotent  frenzy.  The  lithe  tiger,  agile 
as  a cat,  sprang  on  his  foe,  showing  all  his  teeth  in  his  grin,  and, 
grinning  still,  tore  him  limb  from  limb. 

‘I  have  no  sceptre,’  Voltaire  had  said,  ‘but  I have  a pen.’ 
He  had  indeed. 

Before  that  mild  letter  to  Koenig  was  written  from  Sans- 
Souci  on  November  17,  the  first  part  of  ‘ Akakia  ’ had  been 
finished.  But  if  nothing  could  stop  a man  writing  imprudence, 
under  the  absolute  monarchy  of  Prussia  there  was  everything  to 
stop  him  printing  it.  Trickery  was  in  Voltaire’s  blood  ; and 
practice  had  made  him  perfect  in  the  art.  Frederick  had  dealt 
treacherously  with  him ; so  why  not  he  with  Frederick  ? He 
went  to  the  King,  and  read  aloud  a pamphlet  he  had  written 
on  Lord  Bolingbroke.  Will  his  Majesty  sign  the  royal  per- 
mission for  that  pamphlet  to  be  printed  ? By  all  means. 
Frederick  signs  the  last  page  of  the  manuscript.  Voltaire  sends 
it  to  the  printers  ; asks  for  it  back,  to  make  some  trifling  altera- 
tions, and  puts  ‘ Akakia  ’ in  front  of  Bolingbroke.  What  more 
simple  ? 


Mt.  58]  THE  QUARREL  WITH  MAUPERTUIS 


245 


It  only  remained  to  get  a few  printed  copies  sent  out  of  Prussia, 
and  then  one  could  face  destiny  bravely.  One  story  runs  that 
Frederick,  who  heard  everything,  got  wind  of  this  4 Akakia,’  and 
that  Voltaire,  armed  with  the  manuscript,  brought  it  to  the 
King;  and  the  King,  who  loved  wit  very  nearly  but  not 
quite  so  much  as  he  loved  his  own  greatness,  laughed  till  he 
cried.  How  should  a Frederick  the  Great,  with  his  bitter 
humour,  not  laugh  at  a Maupertuis  thus  ridiculed  by  a Voltaire  ? 
Under  the  rose,  one  could  laugh  at  anything — God,  man,  or 
devil — even  one’s  own  Perpetual  President.  If  those  ‘ Matinees 
du  Roi  de  Prusse,  ecrites  par  lui-meme  ’ are  genuine,  Frederick 
stands  proven  as  one  of  the  most  accomplished  actors  on  the 
world’s  stage.  ‘ One  must  think  according  to  the  rank  he 
occupies,’  says  he.  So  he  laughed  ‘ to  dislocation  ’ and  added 
that  there  must  be  no  publishing  of  such  a wicked,  delightful, 
malignant  document — and  then  laughed  afresh.  Voltaire  flung 
the  manuscript  on  the  fire,  as  a proof  of  good  faith.  He  could 
afford  to  be  thus  generous.  Frederick  rescued  the  papers,  says  the 
story,  and  burnt  his  sleeve.  And  the  friends  parted,  still  vastly 
entertained — and  each  pair  of  clever  eyes  looking  into  the  other 
pair — wondering  — wondering . 

The  anecdote,  though  it  is  recorded  by  two  different  persons 
and  is  picturesque,  is,  however,  of  doubtful  veracity.  The  more 
probable  truth  is  that  Frederick,  first  discovering  on  November  20 
that  ‘ Akakia  ’ had  been  printed  at  Potsdam  by  his  own  printers 
and  in  his  own  printing-office,  and  on  the  strength  of  the  permit 
signed  by  himself,  was  furiously  enraged.  He  sent  off  Freders- 
dorff — his  servant,  valet,  friend — post-haste  both  to  the  printer, 
who  confessed  all,  and  to  the  author ; and  warned  the  author, 
who  simply  denied  everything  as  usual,  of  awful  consequences  to 
follow. 

Then  Frederick  wrote  Voltaire  that  famous  letter,  very  badly 
spelt,  which  under  the  circumstances  was  not  immoderate.  ‘ Your 
effrontery  astonishes  me.  ...  Do  not  imagine  that  you  will  make 
me  believe  that  black  is  white.  ...  If  you  persist  in  going  on 
with  the  business  I will  print  everything,  and  the  world  will  see 
that  if  your  works  merit  statues,  your  conduct  deserves  chains.’ 

And  the  irate  host  put,  it  is  said,  a sentinel  outside  the  guest’s 
door. 


246 


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[1752 


Voltaire  wrote  his  answer  on  the  foot  of  Frederick’s  letter 
and  continued  to  deny  everything.  The  whole  thing  is  a hideous 
calumny,  and  I am  very  ill ! But  Frederick  was  not  moved  ; 
and  the  sentinel  was  not  moved  either.  Fredersdorff  was  sent  to 
Voltaire  again — this  time  bearing  with  him  the  signed  confession 
of  the  printer.  Then  the  crafty  Voltaire  thought  he  had  better 
turn  the  matter  into  a joke.  A joke  ! On  November  27  Frederick 
wrote  out  for  him  a very  elaborate  promise  to  be  a good  boy. 
Voltaire  did  not  sign  it.  He  wrote  beneath  it,  calling  attention 
to  its  weak  points  instead.  But,  not  the  less,  Frederick,  on 
November  29,  was  able  to  console  Maupertuis  with  the  news  that 
Voltaire  had  been  forced  to  give  up  the  whole  edition  of  the 
‘ Diatribe,’  which  had  been  solemnly  burnt  in  the  royal  pre- 
sence. He  had  also  been  forbidden  to  print  the  thing  else- 
where. So,  poor,  mad,  beaten  Perpetual  President,  you  can  be 
at  peace ! 

After  an  ‘ arrest  ’ of  eight  days  the  sentinel  was  removed  from 
Voltaire’s  door.  He  had  behaved  abominably.  But  he  was  very 
amusing — and  so  still  infinitely  worth  having. 

On  December  10  the  King  announced  comfortably  to  Mau- 
pertuis, ‘ The  affair  of  the  libels  is  over.  ...  I have  frightened 
Voltaire  on  the  side  of  his  purse  (by  the  threat  of  a fine),  and 
the  result  is  as  I expected.’  Before  December  16  the  Court 
came  up  to  Berlin  for  Christmas.  Voltaire  lodged  at  a friend’s 
house,  the  house  of  M.  de  Francheville,  whose  son  he  employed 
as  a temporary  secretary.  There  seems  no  doubt  he  would  have 
been  again  of  that  societe  intivze , the  suppers — but  for  one  little 
event. 

One  edition  of  ‘ Akakia  ’ had  been  burnt ; but  M.  de  Voltaire 
had  known  very  well  it  was  not  the  only  one.  King  and  Court 
had  hardly  arrived  at  Berlin,  when  lo  and  behold  ! 6 Akakias  ’ 
spring  up  all  over  it  as  quickly  and  plentifully  as  mushrooms  and 
to  be  far  longer  lived. 

Berlin  hated  Maupertuis  and  enjoyed  ‘ Akakia  ’ as  it  had  never 
enjoyed  anything  before.  The  neat,  staid  town  went  mad  with 
laughter  and  delight.  And  in  his  lodgings  the  father  of  ‘ Akakia  ’ 
looked  thoughtfully  to  the  future.  ‘ The  orange  has  been 
squeezed — one  must  think  now  how  to  save  the  rind.’  The 
words  were  written  to  Madame  Denis  on  December  18,  and 


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247 


Voltaire,  with  the  scales  fallen  at  last  from  the  sharpest  eyes 
that  ever  man  had,  added  his  ‘ little  dictionary  as  used  by  kings.’ 

‘ My  friend  means  my  slave . 

1 My  dear  friend  means  I am  more  than  indifferent  to  you . 

‘ For  I will  make  you  happy  read  I will  endure  you  as  long 
as  I have  use  for  you . 

* Sup  with  me  to-night  means  I shall  mock  at  you  this 
evening .’ 

Voltaire  might  well  feel  that  that  three  years’  dream  was 
over,  and  that  it  remained  only  ‘ to  desert  honestly.’ 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  Christmas  Eve  of  1752,  Collini,  that 
intelligent  young  Italian  who  had  seen  Voltaire  at  the  Carrousel 
at  the  giddy  height  of  glory  and  had  now  become  his  secretary, 
was  standing  at  the  window  of  his  master’s  lodgings.  There 
was  a great  crowd  in  the  street,  watching  a fine  bonfire.  Italian 
Collini  did  not  understand  the  meaning  of  the  scene.  But  Vol- 
taire, with  his  rich  experience,  knew  in  a flash.  ‘ I’ll  bet  it’s  my 
Doctor  ! ’ said  he. 

It  was. 


248 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1753 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE  FLIGHT  FROM  PRUSSIA 

With  the  exception  of  the  Hirsch  affair  there  is  no  episode  in 
Voltaire's  life  about  which  so  many  statements  (usually  conflict- 
ing) have  been  made  as  about  the  quarrel  with  Maupertuis  and 
Voltaire's  flight  from  Prussia.  Collini  wrote  Ms  version  of  the  story. 
Prussia  naturally  has  its  own.  Voltaire  has  his  own.  All  the 
Lives  of  Voltaire  and  of  Frederick — French,  English,  and  Ger- 
man—have  their  versions.  To  quote  authorities  for  every  state- 
ment is  the  general  custom  of  the  biographer.  But  the  sifting 
for  truth  is  surely  a process  which  may  be  well  carried  on  behind 
the  scenes ; and  then  the  result  of  that  sifting  given  clear  and 
clean  to  the  public.  If  the  public  cannot  trust  the  ability  or  the 
honesty  of  the  biographer,  the  sources  of  his  information  are  not 
inaccessible,  and  the  public  with  a little  extra  trouble  can  verify 
his  facts,  even  though  he  does  not  assist  it  by  cumbering  his 
text  with  that  annihilation  of  all  interest,  the  perpetual  footnote. 
If  the  subject  is  not  considered  worth  the  extra  trouble,  the 
reader  may  well  take  the  biographer — on  faith.  Ifc  may  be  added 
that  the  custom  of  learning  a man's  life  and  character  from 
other  people  and  not  from  himself,  is  far  too  closely  followed. 
After  all,  the  great  do  not  tell  so  many  lies  about  themselves 
as  their  too  partial  friends,  their  malicious  enemies,  and  their 
interested,  gossiping  servants  tell  about  them.  The  best  bio- 
grapher of  Voltaire  is  Voltaire  himself.  If  any  writer  can  lead 
his  reader  to  throw  away  the  biographies,  even  his  own,  and  study 
Voltaire  at  first-hand — his  letters,  the  wittiest  in  the  world,  and 
his  works,  which  in  matchless  adroitness  can  be  compared  to  no 
other  production  of  the  human  mind — he  will  have  done  much 
and  should  be  well  satisfied. 

The  light  of  that  Christmas  bonfire  made  ‘ Akakia,'  as  it 


^Et.  59] 


THE  FLIGHT  FROM  PRUSSIA 


249 


might  have  been  expected  to  make  it,  more  conspicuous  than 
ever.  Thirty  thousand  copies  were  sold  in  Paris  in  a few  weeks. 
By  January  1758,  in  Prussia,  twelve  presses  were  kept  busy 
printing  it  night  and  day.  The  Prussian  newspapers  held  up 
their  hands  at  it  in  holy  horror,  and  did  their  best  for  it  by  their 
abuse.  For  a week  Voltaire  lay  'perdu.  He  had  thoughts  of 
escaping  to  Plombieres  on  the  very  good  excuse  of  his  health.  A 
flight  to  England  was  often  in  his  mind. 

On  New  Year’s  Day,  at  half-past  three  in  the  afternoon,  he 
sent  back  to  Frederick  4 the  bells  and  the  baubles  he  has  given 
me,’  which  comprised  the  Cross  and  Ribbon  of  the  Order  of 
Merit  and  the  Chamberlain’s  Key. 

On  the  outside  of  the  packet  he  wrote  the  well-known 
quatrain : 

Oh  ! tenderly  I took  your  tender  gifts 
And  sadly  render  them  to  you  again, 

As  bitter  lover  to  lost  love  gives  back 
Her  pictured  image,  in  his  hot  heart’s  pain. 

He  accompanied  the  parcel  with  a letter — a melancholy  reflection 
on  the  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes.  ‘My  resignation  is  equal  to 
my  sorrow.  I shall  remember  nothing  but  your  goodness.  I 
have  lost  everything  ; there  only  remains  to  me  a memory  of 
having  once  been  happy  in  your  retreat  at  Potsdam.  ...  I made 
you  my  idol : an  honest  man  does  not  change  his  religion,  and 
sixteen  years  of  a measureless  devotion  are  not  to  be  destroyed  by 
a single  unlucky  moment.’ 

His  sorrow  was  genuine ; but  so  was  his  determination  to  go. 

At  four  o’clock  on  this  afternoon  a fiacre  drew  up  at  the  door 
of  his  rooms.  Fredersdorff  had  come  from  the  King,  bringing 
back  the  Order  and  Key.  There  was  a long  consultation.  Collini, 
who  was  apparently  eavesdropping  in  the  next  room,  said  his 
master  only  consented  to  receive  them  again  after  a very  lively 
argument.  The  King’s  Chamberlain,  in  fact,  made  a very  wry 
face  at  finding  himself  his  Chamberlain  still.  Go  he  would  ; 
but  go  with  peace  and  honour  he  certainly  would  if  he  could. 
On  January  2 he  wrote  his  King  a conciliatory  letter.  ‘ Do  with 
me  what  you  will,’  it  said.  ‘ But  what  in  the  world  will  you  do 
with  me  ? * it  meant . As  for  the  suppers — I will  be  of  them  no 
more. 


250 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1753 


On  January  18  Voltaire  published  a declaration  denying  the 
authorship  of  ‘ Akakia.’  It  was  a form — hardly  a deceit,  in  that 
it  deceived  nobody.  It  was  to  oblige  the  King — the  King  who 
still  hungered  and  thirsted  for  his  Voltaire  and  could  not  let  him 
go.  True,  it  was  a humble,  obedient,  penitent,  reformed  Voltaire 
he  wanted — in  short,  an  impossibility. 

Frederick  went  back  to  Potsdam  on  January  80,  and  begged 
his  Chamberlain  to  come  back  there  too,  to  his  old  quarters. 

‘ I am  too  ill/  says  the  Chamberlain,  but  inconsistently 
pleased  with  the  friendly  offer  and  taking  care  to  have  it  recorded 
in  the  newspapers,  and  to  tell  it  to  all  his  correspondents  in 
Paris.  Still,  in  the  very  letters  in  which  he  announced  the 
King’s  favour  like  a pleased  child,  the  shrewd  man  was  arranging 
to  leave.  On  February  16  he  was  still  at  Berlin  with  dysentery. 
His  royal  host  sent  him  quinine.  But  that  did  not  cure  him. 
Nothing  would  cure  him  but  some  air  which  was  not  Prussian 
air — some  diet  which  the  kingly  table  could  not  produce — some 
company  which  was  not  Prussian  company. 

He  could  not  go  to  Potsdam  ; but  about  March  1 he  wrote 
to  beg  formal  permission  for  leave  of  absence,  to  journey  to 
French  Plombieres  and  take  there  the  waters  which  were  much 
recommended  for  his  complaints.  He  awaited  the  answer  with 
a feverish  impatience.  He  made  Collini  arrange  his  papers  and 
pack  his  things.  Here  was  a book  to  be  returned  to  the  royal 
library ; then,  there  were  the  coming  expenses  to  be  considered. 
But  no  answer  came  from  Frederick.  Voltaire,  restless  and 
irritable,  must  needs,  on  March  5,  move  from  the  rooms  he 
occupied  in  a house  in  central  Berlin  to  another  in  the  Stralau 
quarter — almost  in  the  country.  Here  he  lived  at  his  own 
expense  with  Collini,  a manservant,  and  a cook.  His  doctor, 
Coste,  came  to  see  him — Coste,  who  was  not  afraid  to  say 
Plombieres  was  the  only  cure  for  his  patient’s  health,  though 
he  knew  the  recommendation  would  be  displeasing  to  the 
King. 

What  if  the  King  refused  permission  ? Such  things  had  been 
done  by  men  of  his  temperament,  and  might  be  done  again. 

Voltaire  would  walk  in  the  garden  of  that  Stralau  house  with 
young  Collini.  ‘ Now  leave  me  to  dream  a little,’  he  would  say. 
And  he  paced  up  and  down  alone — conjecturing,  fearing,  scheming. 


JEt.  59] 


THE  FLIGHT  FEOM  PEUSSIA 


251 


He  must  go  somehow.  He  invented  the  wildest,  absnrdest  plans 
of  escape  ; and  laughed  at  them  gaily  enough  with  that  capacity 
for  seeing  the  humorous  side  of  the  worst  troubles,  which  was 
the  best  gift  the  gods  had  given  him. 

At  last  Frederick  broke  his  silence ; and  Voltaire  wrote  to  his 
niece  on  March  15  that  the  King  had  said  there  were  excellent 
waters  in  Moravia  ! 4 He  might  as  well  tell  me  to  go  and  take 

waters  in  Siberia/ 

Not  the  least  curious  of  the  many  human  documents  preserved 
in  the  archives  of  Berlin  is  that  famous  dismissal  which  at 
last,  on  March  16,  1758,  Frederick  the  Great  flung  upon  paper 
in  a rage. 

‘ He  can  quit  my  service  when  he  pleases  : he  need  not  invent 
the  excuse  of  the  waters  of  Plombieres  ; but  he  will  have  the 
goodness,  before  he  goes,  to  return  to  me  the  contract  of  his  engage- 
ment, the  Key,  the  Cross,  and  the  volume  of  poetry  I have  con- 
fided to  him.  I would  rather  he  and  Koenig  had  only  attacked 
my  works;  I sacrifice  them  willingly  to  people  who  want  to 
blacken  the  reputation  of  others ; I have  none  of  the  folly  and 
vanity  of  authors,  and  the  cabals  of  men  of  letters  appear  to  me 
the  depth  of  baseness/ 

The  Abbe  de  Prades  put  that  dismissal  in  a politer  official 
form,  and  thus  sent  it  to  Voltaire.  But  this  keen-sighted  Arouet 
was  not  minded  to  be  expelled  like  a schoolboy  by  an  angry 
master.  Wherever  he  might  go,  that  master’s  iron  arm  could 
reach  him.  He  wrote,  therefore,  a gay  letter  of  entreaty  to 
Prades,  asking  for  a parting  interview  with  the  King.  Permission 
was  granted  him.  On  March  18,  after  a stay  of  thirteen  days  at 
Stralau,  Voltaire  went  to  Potsdam.  That  evening  he  was  once 
more  installed  in  his  old  rooms  at  Sans-Souci. 

The  next  day,  after  dinner,  he  and  the  King  met  in  private, 
and  once  again  met  as  more  than  friends.  It  has  been  said 
before  that  there  was  between  these  two  men  something  of  the 
glamour  and  the  fitfulness  of  passion.  ‘ I could  live  neither  with 
you  nor  without  you,’  wrote  Voltaire  after  they  had  long  parted 
for  ever.  ‘ You  who  bewitched  me,  whom  I loved,  and  with 
whom  I am  always  angry/  That  was  the  summing  up  of  their 
whole  relationship.  The  enchantment  was  at  work  again  to-night. 
It  is  said  that  they  talked  over  the  Maupertuis  affair.  Collini 


252 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1753 


affirms  that  they  laughed  at  the  President  together.  The  harsh 
dismissal  was  altered  into  a gracious  royal  permit  for  a necessary 
change  and  holiday.  Voltaire  was  to  drink  the  waters,  recover 
his  health,  and  return.  He  was  still  the  King’s  Chamberlain. 
He  was  to  retain  his  Cross,  his  Key,  and  alas  ! alas  ! — the  royal 
volume  of  poems.  The  interview  lasted  two  hours.  Voltaire 
came  from  it  radiant  and  satisfied.  For  a week  Potsdam  laid 
herself  out  to  delight  him.  Perhaps  she  and  the  King  would  be 
so  charming,  Voltaire  would  not  want  to  leave  them  even  for  a 
time  ! Frederick  may  have  hoped  so.  Voltaire  submitted  to  the 
blandishments  ; nay,  enjoyed  them.  But  behind  the  bright  eyes 
and  the  gay,  vain,  susceptible,  pleasure-loving  French  heart  lay 
the  purpose  and  iron  resolution  which  make  greatness.  Voltaire 
was  going.  On  March  26,  1753,  about  eight  o’clock  in  the 
morning  he  went  on  to  the  parade  ground  where  Frederick  was 
holding  the  last  review  of  his  regiment  before  he  started  for 
Silesia. 

‘ Sire,  here  is  M.  de  Voltaire,  who  comes  to  take  his  orders.’ 

‘ Eh  bien  ! M.  de  Voltaire,  you  are  resolved  then  to  set  out  ? ’ 

‘ Sire,  urgent  business  and  my  health  make  it  necessary  for 
me  to  do  so.’ 

‘ Monsieur,  I wish  you  a pleasant  journey.’ 

They  never  met  again. 

Voltaire  hurried  back  to  his  rooms.  Everything  was  ready 
for  flight.  Collini  had  arranged  all  money  matters.  The 
travelling  carriage  was  at  the  door.  Voltaire  hastily  wrote  a 
brief  farewell  to  d’Argens.  By  nine  the  travellers  were  en  route . 
They  never  paused  or  looked  back.  By  six  o’clock  in  the  even- 
ing of  March  27  they  had  covered  ninety-two  miles  of  road,  and 
were  in  the  rooms  prudent  Voltaire  had  engaged  in  advance  at 
Leipsic.  Did  he  then  recall  and  wonder  at  that  strange  tragi- 
comedy of  the  last  three  years  ? Whatever  his  lips  uttered,  his 
heart  knew  he  had  left  Frederick  for  ever.  The  time  had  not  yet 
come,  though  it  did  come,  for  regret,  remorse,  and  affection. 

Voltaire  had  brought  with  him  in  that  travelling  carriage  two 
supplements  to  his  4 Doctor  Akakia.’  Almost  his  last  words 
from  Potsdam,  in  a letter  to  Formey,  were,  6 When  I am  attacked 
I defend  myself  like  a devil ; but  I am  a good  devil  and  end  by 
laughing.’  But  it  was  better  to  be  attacked  by  a Voltaire  than 


yET.  59] 


THE  FLIGHT  FROM  PRUSSIA 


253 


to  be  mocked  by  him — which  Maupertuis,  when  he  read  those 
supplements,  once  more  knew  to  his  cost. 

On  April  8 that  very  ill-advised  person  saw  fit  to  write  a 
threatening  letter  to  Voltaire  at  Leipsic,  in  which  he  said,  almost 
in  so  many  words,  If  you  attack  me  again,  nothing  shall  spare 
you.  ‘Be  grateful  to  the  respect  and  obedience  which  have 
hitherto  withheld  my  arm  and  saved  you  from  the  worst  affair 
you  ever  had.’ 

Voltaire’s  answer  was  a new  edition  of  4 Akakia  ’ with  the  two 
supplements  added,  a travesty  of  the  letter  he  had  just  received 
from  Maupertuis,  and  a burlesque  epistle  to  Formey  in  his  official 
character  of  Secretary  of  the  Berlin  Academy.  If  the  first  part 
of  4 Akakia  ’ had  been  laughable,  the  second  was  exquisitely 
ludicrous.  It  reached  Frederick  soon  enough,  as  everything 
reached  him. 

On  April  11  he  wrote  a very  memorable  and  famous  order  to 
his  Resident  at  Frankfort — one  Freytag.  The  King  commanded 
Frey  tag  to  demand  of  Voltaire,  when  he  passed  through  Frank- 
fort, the  Chamberlain’s  Key,  the  Cross  and  Ribbon  of  the  Order 
of  Merit,  every  paper  in  his  Majesty’s  handwriting,  and  a book 
‘specified  in  the  note  enclosed.’  If  Voltaire  declined  to  do  as  he 
was  told,  he  was  to  be  arrested.  On  April  12  Frederick  wrote  to 
his  sister  of  Bayreuth  a letter  wherein  he  spoke  of  his  4 charming, 
divine  Voltaire,’  that  ‘sublime  spirit,  first  of  thinking  beings,’ 
as  the  greatest  scoundrel  and  the  most  treacherous  rascal  in 
the  universe  ; and  said  that  men  were  broken  on  the  wheel  who 
deserved  it  less  than  he. 

The  Margravine  confessed  that,  for  the  life  of  her,  she  had 
not  been  able  to  keep  her  countenance  while  reading  that  second 
part  of  4 Akakia  ’ ; but  her  brother  was  in  no  laughing  mood.  To 
soothe  Maupertuis  he  had  caused  his  curt  dismissal  to  Voltaire  of 
March  16  to  appear  in  the  newspapers.  4 Akakia  ’ may  be  fairly 
said  to  have  been  one  of  the  most  famous  jokes  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  to  have  been  the  delight  of  every  person  who  read 
it,  save  only  Maupertuis  and  Frederick  the  Great. 

For  two-and-twenty  days  Voltaire  passed  his  time  not  un- 
happily at  Leipsic.  He  visited  the  University  there.  He  arranged 
his  books  and  papers.  He  had  with  him,  besides  Collini,  a 
copyist  and  a manservant,  both  of  whom  he  employed  in  literary 


254 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1753 


work.  He  was  now  busy  defending  ‘ Louis  XIV.’  against  La 
Beaumelle’s  criticisms.  To  be  sure  ‘ Louis  XIV.’  was  its  own 
defence;  but  it  was  never  in  Voltaire’s  irritable  and  pugnacious 
nature  to  let  the  curs  bark  at  his  heels  unheeded.  He  must  be 
for  ever  kicking  them  or  stinging  them  with  his  whip  and  so 
goading  them  to  fresh  fury.  To  sit  serene  above  the  thunder 
was  quite  impossible  to  this  god : he  was  always  coming  down 
from  his  Olympus  to  answer  the  blasphemies  of  the  mortals  and 
to  fight  the  meanest  of  them. 

On  April  18,  after  he  had  been  in  Leipsic  rather  less  than  a 
month,  the  travelling  carriage  stood  once  more  at  his  door.  The 
luggage  which  was  heaped  into  it  did  not  contain  the  book  to 
which  Frederick  had  alluded  in  his  letter  to  Freytag.  That 
luckless  volume,  in  which  were  compiled  the  poetic  effusions  of 
Frederick  the  Great,  free  thinking,  imprudent,  and  not  a little 
indecent,  had  been  given  in  charge  of  a merchant  of  Leipsic, 
who  was  to  forward  it,  with  many  other  of  Voltaire’s  books,  to 
Strasburg. 

Chief  among  the  royal  poems  was  a certain  ‘ Palladium,’ 
imitated  from  the  ‘ Pueelle,’  but  very  much  more  ribald  and  in- 
sulting to  the  Christian  religion  ; and,  in  that  it  abused  other 
kings  who  might  be  dangerous  foes,  certainly  not  a work  of 
which  King  Frederick  would  care  to  own  himself  the  author.  It 
had  been  secretly  printed  in  the  palace  at  Potsdam  in  1751. 

Voltaire  hoped  to  meet  at  Strasburg,  not  only  his  books,  but 
the  person  whom  Frederick  spoke  of  as  ‘ that  wearisome  niece.’ 
The  criminal’s  next  stopping-place  after  Leipsic  was  Gotha.  M. 
de  Voltaire  and  suite  intended  to  put  up  at  the  inn  there,  but 
were  not  installed  in  it  when  the  delightful  Duchess  of  Saxe- 
Gotha,  not  the  least  charming  of  Voltaire’s  philosophic  duchesses 
and  with  whom  he  had  corresponded  when  he  was  at  Cirey, 
begged  him  to  be  her  guest,  in  her  chateau.  Forty  years  old, 
gentle,  graceful,  accomplished,  with  that  love  of  learning  without 
learnedness  which  was  the  peculiar  charm  of  the  women  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  Voltaire  may  well  have  found  her,  as  he  did 
find  her,  ‘ the  best  princess  in  the  world.’  ‘ And  who — God  be 
thanked,’  he  added  piously,  ‘ wrote  no  verses.’  She  received  him 
and  his  attendants  with  a delighted  hospitality.  She  had  a 
husband,  who  was  not  of  much  account  on  the  present  occasion. 


^Et.  59] 


THE  FLIGHT  FEOM  PRUSSIA 


255 


And  there  was  a Madame  de  Buchwald,  who  also  had  all  that 
fascination  which  seems  to  have  been  the  birthright  of  the  women 
of  that  time. 

In  all  lives  there  are  certain  brief  halcyon  periods  when  one 
forgets  alike  the  troubles  that  are  past  and  the  cares  that  are  to 
come  and  enjoys  oneself  in  the  moment,  defiant  of  fate,  and 
with  something  of  the  abandon  of  a child.  This  month  was 
such  a period  for  Voltaire.  After  the  fights  and  the  worries  of 
the  three  past  years,  he  was  peculiarly  susceptible  to  the  soothing 
flattery  and  the  caressing  admiration  of  this  couple  of  gracious 
women. 

He  read  them  his  ‘ Natural  Law.’  He  read  them  new  cantos 
of  the  ‘ Pucelle.’  (Modesty  was  the  lost  piece  of  silver  for  which 
the  woman  of  this  period  never  even  searched.)  Nothing  was 
bad  about  Gotha  save  its  climate,  said  he.  To  please  his  dear 
Duchess  and  to  instruct  her  son,  the  obliging  Voltaire  embarked 
here  on  a popular  history  of  the  German  Empire  from  the  time 
of  Charlemagne. 

‘ Annals  of  the  Empire  ’ is  one  of  the  least  successful  of 
Voltaire’s  works.  Truth  compels  the  critic  indeed  to  say  that  it 
comes  very  near  to  being  hideously,  preposterously,  and  unmiti- 
gatedly  dull.  It  was  written  to  order  and  without  inspiration.  It 
is  laborious,  monotonous,  and  long.  That  its  conscientious  list 
of  Kings,  Emperors,  and  Electors,  and  its  neat  little  rhyming 
summary  of  each  century,  may  have  proved  useful  to  the  young 
gentleman  they  were  designed  to  instruct,  is  very  likely.  But 
Voltaire  did  not  put  his  soul  in  it.  In  the  mechanical  effort  it 
required  of  his  brain  he  was  soon  indeed  to  find  great,  and  greatly 
needed,  soothing.  The  month  passed  on  winged  feet.  But 
Voltaire  had  to  proceed,  leisurely  it  might  be,  but  still  to  proceed 
to  Strasburg  to  embrace  his  niece. 

He  had  had  an  idea  of  visiting  the  clever  and  delightful 
Margravine  of  Bayreuth  with  whom  he  so  often  corresponded ; 
but  all  the  circumstances  considered,  he  thought  she  was  too 
nearly  related  to  Frederick,  and  that  a visit  to  her  might  endanger 
the  little  liberty  he  had  obtained. 

No  doubt,  as  he  lumbered  along  in  the  great  travelling 
carriage,  he  congratulated  himself  on  at  last  getting  out  of 
Prussia,  at  once  easily  and  gracefully. 


256 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1753 


He  left  Gotha  on  May  25,  1753. 

He  rested  a night  or  two  with  the  Landgrave  of  Hesse  at 
Wabern,  near  Cassel.  At  Cassel,  Baron  Pollnitz  of  the  suppers 
was  staying;  as  Frederick’s  spy,  Voltaire  seems  to  have  sus- 
pected. By  May  30  the  travelling  party  were  at  Marburg.  After 
leaving  there  they  passed  through  Fredeburg,  where  they  visited 
the  Salt  Springs.  And  on  May  31,  1753,  Voltaire  reached  the 
‘ Golden  Lion  ’ at  Frankfort-on-Maine,  meaning  to  proceed  on 
his  journey  the  next  day. 


^Et.  59] 


257 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THE  COMEDY  OF  FRANKFORT 

Frederick  the  Great  had  the  misfortune  to  suffer  now  from 
subordinates  so  loyal  that  they  went  beyond  their  master's  com- 
mands, and  officials  with  a blundering  zeal  not  according  to 
knowledge. 

The  second  part  of  6 Akakia  ’ had  flung  him  into  one  of  the 
greatest  furies  of  his  life.  The  unmeasured  terms  in  which  he 
wrote  of  Voltaire  to  his  sister  have  been  recorded.  Wilhelmina's 
propitiating  answer  did  not  propitiate  him.  Voltaire  was  madden- 
ingly and  devilishly  clever.  The  sting  of  the  ‘ Akakia  ' supple- 
ments lay  in  part  for  Frederick  the  Great  in  the  fact  that  he 
could  hardly  prevent  himself  from  laughing  at  such  an  exquisite 
humour,  nor  withhold  his  admiration  of  such  a dazzling  and 
daring  genius.  But  add  to  this,  that  in  making  a fool  of  his 
President,  Voltaire  had  also  made  a fool  of  the  President's 
friend  and  King ; that  that  King  had  cringed  to  win  Voltaire  to 
Prussia,  and  cringed  to  keep  him.  Still  extant  were  the  royal 
letters  filled  with  the  wildest  hyperbole  of  devotion  and  of 
admiration.  He  had  stooped  to  entreat.  He  had  licked  dust  to 
keep  the  Frenchman  his  property ; and  he  had  done  it  in  vain. 
It  may  be  forgiven  him  that,  like  Naaman  the  Syrian,  he  went 
away  in  a rage. 

Before  he  went  to  Silesia  he  had  caused  to  be  written  on 
April  11  that  memorable  order  to  Frey  tag,  before  alluded  to, 
wherein  he  commanded  Frey  tag  to  deprive  Voltaire  on  his 
arrival  at  Frankfort  of  that  Key,  Cross  and  Order,  all  papers  in 
the  King’s  handwriting,  and — ‘the  book  specified  in  the  note 
enclosed.’  Only — there  was  no  note  enclosed,  and  no  book 
specified  at  all, 

8 


258 


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[1753 


A conscientious  and  fussy  old  busybody  was  Freytag ; worry  - 
ingly  anxious  to  do  right,  and  fretfully  and  rightly  suspecting 
himself  to  be  no  match  for  Voltaire.  Back  he  writes  to  Potsdam 
on  April  21,  asking  further  instructions  about  that  unspecified 
book ; and  ‘ If  Voltaire  says  he  has  sent  on  his  luggage  ahead, 
are  we  to  keep  him  a prisoner  at  Frankfort  till  he  has  brought 
it  back  ? ’ 

‘ Yes,’  comes  back  the  answer  on  April  29.  4 Keep  him  in 

sight  till  the  luggage  is  brought  back  and  he  has  given  to  you  the 
royal  manuscripts,  especially  the  book  called  “(Euvre  de  Poesie.”  * 

For  six  weeks,  while  Voltaire  was  amusing  himself  with  his 
Duchess  and  his  ‘ Annals/  fussy  Freytag  awaited  him.  Voltaire 
spent  the  night  of  May  81  in  perfect  tranquillity  at  the  inn  of 
the  ‘ Golden  Lion.’  On  June  1,  Freytag,  Councillor  Rucker,  who 
represented  a Councillor  Schmidt  who  was  ill,  and  Lieutenant 
Brettwitz  called  upon  Voltaire  at  eight  o’clock  in  the  morning 
at  the  ‘ Golden  Lion,’  and  in  the  name  of  his  Prussian  Majesty 
requested  his  Prussian  Majesty’s  ex-guest  to  deliver  up  imme- 
diately all  the  royal  manuscripts,  the  Key,  the  Cross  and  the 
Order. 

It  was  not  wonderful,  perhaps,  that  at  this  request  Voltaire 
flung  himself  back  in  his  chair  and  closed  his  eyes,  overcome. 
Even  to  Freytag’s  unemotional  vision  the  Frenchman  appeared 
ill,  and  was  nothing  better  than  a skeleton.  Collini  ransacked 
Voltaire’s  trunks  at  his  order.  He  delivered  up  all  the  royal 
manuscripts — save  one  which  he  sent  to  Freytag  the  next  morn- 
ing, saying  he  had  found  it  later  under  a table.  The  Key  and 
the  Ribbon — that  Key  which  had  long  torn  his  pocket,  and  that 
Ribbon  which  had  been  a halter  round  his  neck — he  also  gave  to 
Freytag.  He  sent  on  to  him  in  the  evening  his  commission  as 
King’s  Chamberlain.  As  for  the  ‘ QEuvre  de  Poesie  ’ — why,  that, 
says  Voltaire,  I packed  up  with  other  books  in  a box,  and,  for 
the  life  of  me,  cannot  tell  you  whether  the  box  is  at  Leipsic  or  at 
Hamburg. 

Considering  the  passionate  nature  of  his  desire  to  be  out  of 
this  Prussia ; considering  his  wretched  health,  which  really  did 
need  Plombieres  waters,  or  some  waters  or  some  great  change  of 
scene  and  of  air ; considering  the  affront  that  was  being  put 
upon  him  ; considering  the  fact  that  that  ‘ (Euvre  de  Poesie  ’ was 


JEt.  59] 


THE  COMEDY  OF  FEANKFOET 


259 


his  own,  a present  from  the  King,  corrected  and  embellished  by 
M.  de  Voltaire  himself,  it  must  be  conceded  that  he  took  the 
news  that  he  was  to  be  a prisoner  at  the  Frankfort  inn  until  that 
unlucky  book  was  forthcoming,  pretty  philosophically.  He  did 
indeed  beg  vainly  to  be  allowed  to  pursue  his  journey.  It  was 
not  pleasant  to  have  to  sign  a parole  not  to  go  beyond  the  garden 
of  one’s  hotel ; to  have  for  host  a man  under  oath  not  to  let  his 
guest  depart.  It  was  not  pleasant  to  have  three  blundering 
German  officials  turning  over  one’s  effects  for  eight  consecutive 
hours,  from  nine  in  the  morning  till  five  o’clock  in  the  afternoon. 
The  facts  that  Freytag — who  certainly  meant  very  well — confided 
Voltaire’s  health  to  the  best  doctor  in  the  place,  and  offered  the 
captive  the  pleasure  of  a drive  with  himself,  the  great  Freytag, 
the  Resident,  in  the  public  gardens,  were  insufficient  consolations 
for  delay  and  indignity.  Freytag  signed  a couple  of  agreements 
wherein  he  declared  that  as  soon  as  the  book  arrived,  Voltaire 
could  go  where  he  liked.  One  copy  of  the  agreement  Voltaire 
kept.  He  and  Collini  declared  that  Freytag  spelled  Poesie, 
Poeshie ; and  on  the  second  copy  which  Voltaire  sent  to  Madame 
Denis,  to  reassure  her,  her  uncle  wrote  ‘ Good  for  the  (Euvre  de 
Poeshie  of  the  King  your  master  ! ’ Voltaire  could  still  joke  ; and 
still  work.  He  was  not  all  unhappy. 

He  went  on  with  his  ‘ Annals.’  He  received  visitors — as  a 
famous  person  whose  extraordinary  detention  had  already  got 
wind  in  the  town.  He  walked  in  the  garden  with  Collini.  He 
wrote  several  letters,  without  even  alluding  to  his  present  circum- 
stances. He  was  still  a laughing  philosopher.  He  enjoyed  that 
Poeshie  joke  immensely.  He  also  enjoyed  boxing  the  ears  of 
Van  Duren,  once  printer  at  The  Hague  and  now  retired  to 
Frankfort,  who  waited  on  him  with  a bill  thirteen  years  old. 
Collini  found  his  master,  as  ever,  good  and  benevolent. 

Five  days  later  he  had  begun  to  grow  a little  impatient. 
Worthy  Freytag  was  shocked  when  he  visited  his  captive  on  that 
fifth  day  of  his  detention,  June  5,  to  hear  him  ask  if  he  could 
not  change  his  residence,  and  go  and  call  on  the  Duke  of 
Meiningen ; and,  worst  of  all,  break  out  into  invectives  against 
that  solemn  old  conscientious  stupidity,  the  Resident  himself. 
Freytag,  not  a little  flurried,  went  home  and  wrote  for  more 
explicit  commands  from  Potsdam.  Since  that  first  order,  dated 


260 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1753 


April  11,  none  had  proceeded  directly  from  Frederick.  He  was 
still  away  on  his  tour  : and  to  Fredersdorff  in  Potsdam  and 
Frey  tag  in  Frankfort,  his  too  zealous  servants,  belongs  most  of 
the  dishonour  and  ridicule  the  affair  heaped  on  the  name  of 

Frederick. 

Frey  tag  was  no  sooner  out  of  the  house  than  Voltaire,  who 
still  pursued  his  old,  old  policy  of  leaving  no  stone  unturned,  sat 
down  and  wrote  a very  cunning  letter  to  the  Emperor  of  Austria 
beseeching  his  interference  in  his,  Voltaire’s,  behalf.  The  day 
before,  on  June  4,  he  had  written  a similar  one  to  d’Argenson, 
showing  how  it  would  really  be  to  the  best  interest  of  the  French 
Ministry  to  come  to  his  rescue.  On  June  7 he  wrote  to  d’ Argental 
of  his  detention  with  a calm  and  philosophy  which,  as  has  been 
well  said,  people  keep  as  a rule  for  the  misfortunes  of  others. 

On  the  ninth  day  of  his  captivity,  that  is  to  say,  June  9,  1758, 
there  drew  up  at  the  door  of  the  ‘ Golden  Lion  ’ a post-chaise 
containing  a very  fat,  hot,  breathless  and  excited  lady  of  uncertain 
years,  who  fell  upon  the  captive’s  neck  and  fervently  embraced 
him,  crying  out  ‘ Uncle  ! I always  said  that  man  would  be  the 
death  of  you.’ 

Marie  Louise  Denis  was  at  this  time  about  three-and-forty 
years  old.  Idle,  self-indulgent,  and  extravagant,  she  was  a good- 
humoured  person  enough  if  a vast  appetite  for  pleasure  were 
gratified  to  the  full.  Voluble,  bustling,  and  impetuous  ; foolish, 
but  not  without  a certain  vulgar  shrewdness  ; affectionate,  until 
the  objects  of  her  affections  were  out  of  sight,  when  she  entirely 
forgot  all  about  them ; vain,  greedy,  and  goodnatured  ; much 
too  lazy  to  be  long  offended  with  anyone,  and  quite  incapable  of 
speaking  the  truth — Madame  Denis  was  a type  of  woman  which 
has  never  been  uncommon  in  any  age.  So  long  as  she  was 
happy  and  comfortable  herself,  she  was  quite  ready  to  allow 
her  neighbours  to  be  so  too.  She  was  a cordial  hostess ; and 
talked  a great  deal  and  at  the  very  top  of  her  voice.  With 
a mind  as  wholly  incapable  of  real  cultivation  as  was  her  heart 
of  any  great  or  sustained  feeling,  from  long  association  with 
Voltaire  she  caught  the  accent  of  cleverness,  as  after  living  in 
a foreign  country  one  catches  the  accent  of  a language  though 
one  may  know  nothing  of  its  construction,  its  grammar,  or  its 
literature. 


JEt.  59] 


THE  COMEDY  OF  FRANRFOBT 


261 


If  Voltaire  had  been  in  many  respects  unfortunate  in  the 
first  woman  who  influenced  his  life,  he  was  a thousand  times  more 
so  in  the  second.  If  Madame  du  Chatelet  had  had  a shrewish 
temper,  she  had  had  transcendent  mental  gifts  ; Madame  Denis 
had  the  shrew’s  temper  with  a mind  essentially  limited  and 
commonplace.  Madame  du  Chatelet  had  once  loved  Voltaire  ; 
Madame  Denis  never  loved  anything  but  her  pleasures.  From 
the  first  moment  of  her  connection  with  him,  his  niece  was  a worry 
and  a care  to  him — making  him,  as  well  as  herself,  ludicrous 
with  her  penchant  for  bad  playwriting  and  her  elderly  coquetries. 
It  is  not  insignificant  that  Longchamp,  Collini,  and  Wagniere 
hated  her  from  their  souls.  (Collini,  indeed,  politely  praised  her 
in  his  memoirs,  written  long  after  the  events  they  chronicled, 
and  roundly  abused  her  in  his  letters  written  at  the  time.) 
Voltaire  kept  her  with  him,  partly  no  doubt  because  the  tie  of 
relationship  bound  them.  But  his  enemies  may  concede  that 
if  he  had  not  been  in  domestic  life  one  of  the  most  generous, 
patient,  goodhumoured,  forbearing,  and  philosophic  of  men,  he 
would  have  snapped  that  tie  in  the  case  of  Louise  Denis  without 
compunction. 

It  must  be  briefly  noted  here  that  those  enemies  declare  that 
there  was  another  tie  between  Voltaire  and  Madame  Denis  than 
that  of  uncle  and  niece.  But  if  there  had  been  why  should  it 
not  have  been  legalised  by  marriage  ? An  appeal  to  the  Pope 
and  the  payment  of  a certain  sum  alone  were  necessary.  Voltaire 
was  not  too  moral,  but  he  was  too  shrewd,  and  had  had  far  too 
much  experience  of  the  painful  consequences  of  acting  illegally, 
to  do  so  when  it  was  totally  unnecessary.  He  had  been,  too,  but 
a cold  lover  to  Madame  du  Chatelet  with  her  eblouissante  per- 
sonality. What  in  the  world  was  there  to  make  a decrepit  uncle 
of  nine-and-fifty  fall  in  love  with  a lazy,  ugly  niece  of  forty- 
three,  who  bored  him  ? The  thing  is  against  nature.  The  tone 
in  which  he  speaks  of  Madame  Denis  in  his  letters — good- 
humoured  and  patronising — is  certainly  not  the  tone  of  a lover. 
Add  to  this,  that  the  foolish  relict  of  M.  Denis  was  always  the 
victim  of  gallant  penchants  for  quite  other  persons  than  Voltaire, 
now  for  d’Arnaud,  now  for  Ximenes,  presently  for  young  secre- 
tary Collini,  and  a handsome  major  of  twenty-seven. 

The  age  was  a vile  one;  and  Voltaire  was  in  it  and  of  it. 


262 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1753 


No  woman,  were  she  ever  so  old  and  ugly,  could  have  been  at 
the  head  of  his  house  and  escaped  calumny.  But  he  may  be 
exonerated  from  being  his  niece’s  lover.  It  was  a sin  he  had  no 
mind  to. 

He  was  undoubtedly  very  sincerely  glad  to  see  her  at  the 

present  moment.  And  if  she  was  not  quite  heroic  enough  to 

keep  herself  from  saying  ‘ I told  you  so ! ’ she  was  quite  good- 
natured  enough  to  sympathise  with  her  uncle,  even  if  he  had 
brought  his  misfortunes  at  least  in  part  upon  himself.  This 
meeting,  too,  had  been  so  long  planned,  written  of,  and  delayed. 
Both  uncle  and  niece — not  yet  knowing  each  other  as  fatally 
well  as  they  were  soon  to  do — had  heartily  desired  it.  One  of 
the  very  first  things  practical  Madame  Denis  did  was  to  sit  down 
and  write  on  June  11  a very  sensible  and  moving  letter  to 
Frederick  the  Great,  which,  if  her  uncle  did  not  help  in  its  com- 
position, is  an  example  of  the  truth  of  the  axiom  that  one 

intuition  of  a woman  is  worth  all  the  reasoning  of  a man.  It 

was  not  Madame  Denis’s  fault  that  that  appeal  to  Frederick  to 
let  Voltaire  go  free  did  not  reach  Frederick  until  it  was  too  late 
to  be  of  use.  She  had  already  implored  the  good  offices  of  Lord 
Keith,  who  had  been  of  Frederick’s  suppers,  and  was  now  in 
France  as  Prussian  envoy ; and  the  prudent  Scotchman  had 
replied  advising  her  to  recommend  Uncle  Voltaire  to  keep  quiet, 
and  to  remember  that  ‘ Kings  have  long  arms.’  Nothing  daunted, 
Madame  Denis  wrote  to  Keith  again.  This  letter,  too,  though 
in  the  niece’s  hand,  bears  evidence  of  the  uncle’s  brain.  The 
energetic  pair  (Madame  Denis  declared  in  every  letter  that  they 
were  both  very  ill)  further  wrote  to  d’Argenson  and  Madame  de 
Pompadour  to  lay  before  France  the  astonishing  facts  of  their 
case. 

It  only  remained  for  Madame  Denis  after  this  to  try  and 
cheer  the  captivity  of  the  prisoner  of  the  ‘ Golden  Lion,’  and  to 
help  him  entertain  the  illustrious  local  notables  who  came  to  call 
upon  him. 

Early  on  the  morning  of  Monday,  June  18,  the  chest  contain- 
ing that  famous  ‘ (Euvre  de  Poeshie  ’ was  delivered  at  Freytag’s 
house.  4 Now  we  can  go  ! ’ thinks  Voltaire.  He  completed  his 
preparations.  He  sent  Collini  to  Freytag’s  house  to  be  present 
at  the  opening  of  the  parcel.  But  cautious  Frey  tag  was  awaiting 


Mt.  59] 


THE  COMEDY  OF  FRANKFORT 


263 


clearer  orders  from  Potsdam  : and  would  not  open  the  case. 
Voltaire  sent  Collini  many  times  during  that  morning  ; nay, 
many  times  in  a single  hour  : and  Freytag  sent  him  away  again. 
At  noon  comes  a despatch  to  Freytag  from  Fredersdorff.  ‘ Do 
nothing,’  says  that  official,  1 until  the  King  returns  here  next 
Thursday,  when  you  shall  have  further  orders.’  And  Freytag,  in 
a note  of  the  most  excessive  politeness,  conveys  this  message  to 
Voltaire. 

Voltaire’s  patience  had  had  eighteen  days  to  run  out : and  the 
supply  was  pretty  well  exhausted.  At  his  side  was  his  niece 
dying  to  go,  and  anticipating,  not  unnaturally,  that  Frederick 
intended  something  very  sinister  indeed  by  these  delays.  Voltaire 
went  to  Freytag  and  asked  to  see  Fredersdorff’s  despatch.  And 
Freytag  refused,  in  a rage.  That  night  Madame  Denis  wrote  to 
the  Abbe  de  Prades — as  the  intimate  of  Frederick — telling  him 
of  this  new  insult  and  delay.  And  Voltaire  resolved  upon 
action. 

Leaving  Madame  Denis  to  look  after  the  luggage  and  await 
events  at  the  ‘ Golden  Lion,’  on  Wednesday,  June  20,  about 
three  o’clock  in  the  afternoon,  Voltaire  and  Collini  slipped  out  of 
the  inn  and  went  to  another  hostelry,  called  the  ‘ Crown  of  the 
Empire,’  where  they  got  into  a post-chaise  which  was  returning 
to  Mayence.  A servant  followed  them  as  far  as  the  ‘ Crown  of 
the  Empire  ’ and  put  into  the  post-chaise  a cash-box  and  two 
portfolios.  But  for  the  fact  that  one  of  the  escaping  criminals, 
sombrely  dressed  in  black  velvet  for  the  occasion,  dropped  a 
notebook  in  the  city  and  spent  four  minutes  of  priceless  time 
looking  for  it,  they  would  have  been  out  of  Frankfort  and  the 
jurisdiction  of  Freytag  before  that  breathless  and  flurried  official 
caught  them  up  and  arrested  them,  with  the  assistance  of  the 
officer  at  the  Mayence  gate,  which  they  had  actually  reached. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  say  that  Voltaire  did  not  submit  to  this 
arrest  tamely.  He  argued  with  no  little  passion  and  adroitness. 
Collini  supported  all  his  statements  impartially.  4 The  worst 
bandits  could  not  have  struggled  more  to  get  away,’  said  unfortu- 
nate Freytag.  But  the  Resident  had  might  on  his  side,  if  not 
right.  He  left  Voltaire  and  Collini  under  a guard  of  six  soldiers 
and  ‘ flew  ’ back  to  the  Burgomaster  of  Frankfort,  who  confirmed 
the  arrest.  When  the  unhappy  official  got  back  to  the  city  gate, 


264 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIKE 


[1753 


he  found  Voltaire  had  spent  his  time  burning  papers.  What  he 
did  not  know,  was  that  Voltaire  had  further  taken  advantage  of 
his  absence  to  abstract  a sheaf  of  manuscript  from  one  of  the 
portfolios  and  to  give  it  to  Collini,  saying,  ‘ Hide  that  somewhere 
about  you.' 

Freytag  brought  his  prisoners  back  to  the  city  in  his  carriage, 
which  was  surrounded  by  a guard  of  soldiers,  and  very  soon  by 
a crowd.  He  took  them  to  the  house  of  that  Councillor  Schmidt 
(whose  office  had  been  temporarily  filled  on  June  1 by  Councillor 
Rucker)  because,  said  Freytag,  the  landlord  of  the  ‘ Golden  Lion  ’ 
would  not  have  Voltaire  in  his  house  any  longer  ‘on  account  of 
his  incredible  meanness/  Freytag  then  made  the  prisoners  give 
up  the  cash-box  and  their  money.  ‘Count  the  money/  said 
Schmidt ; ‘ they  are  quite  capable  of  pretending  they  had  more 
than  they  really  had/  From  Voltaire  were  also  taken  ‘ his  watch, 
his  snuff-box,  and  some  jewels  that  he  wears/  Collini  recounts 
that  Voltaire  feigned  illness  to  soften  the  hearts  of  his  captors. 
But  this  very  transparent  ruse  failed  entirely  ; as  might  have 
been  expected.  After  two  hours’  waiting,  Dorn,  Freytag’s  clerk, 
a disgraced  solicitor  of  Frankfort,  took  the  pair  to  a low  tavern 
called  the  ‘Goat/  where  Voltaire  was  shut  up  in  one  room 
guarded  by  three  soldiers  with  bayonets  ; and  Collini  in  another. 
Voltaire’s  cash-box  and  portfolios  had  been  left  in  a trunk  at 
Schmidt’s,  and  the  trunk  padlocked. 

Madame  Denis,  hearing  of  Voltaire’s  arrest,  had  flown  to  try 
the  effect  of  feminine  eloquence  upon  the  burgomaster. 

He  replied  by  putting  her  under  arrest  at  the  ‘ Golden  Lion  ’ ; 
and  presently  sent  her,  under  guard  of  Dorn  and  three  soldiers, 
to  the  ‘ Goat  ’ tavern,  where  she  was  placed  in  a garret  with  no 
furniture  in  it  but  a bed  ; ‘ soldiers  for  femmes  de  chambre , and 
bayonets  for  curtains.’  Madame  Denis  appears  to  have  spent 
the  night  in  hysterics.  The  miscreant  Dorn  actually  persisted  in 
taking  his  supper  in  her  room  and  emptying  bottle  after  bottle  in 
her  presence  and  treating  her  with  insult.  The  truth  was, 
Freytag  and  Dorn  did  not  believe  in  her  nieceship  to  Voltaire  and 
mistook  the  poor  lady  for  a wholly  disreputable  character. 

Collini  spent  his  night,  dressed,  on  his  bed.  Beneath  the 
shelter  of  its  curtains  he  drew  forth  from  his  breeches  that  sheaf 
of  manuscript  Voltaire  had  given  him  at  the  Mayence  gate.  It 


Mt.  59] 


THE  COMEDY  OF  FRANKFORT 


265 


was  the  manuscript  of  the  ‘Pucelle,’  so  far  as  it  was  then 
written. 

If  Voltaire  spent  his  night  in  a rage,  he  had  every  excuse  for 
it.  At  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening  he  wrote  to  that  good  friend  of 
his,  the  Margravine,  laying  his  desperate  case  before  her  and 
begging  her  to  send  his  letter  on  to  her  brother.  He  had  broken 
his  parole — true ; but  not  until  Freytag  had  broken  his  written 
agreement  that  when  that  1 (Euvre  de  Poeshie ’ arrived  he  should 
go  where  he  listed.  He  had  borne  a most  galling  delay  not 
impatiently.  For  being  in  possession  of  a book  which  had  been 
given  to  him,  he,  his  niece,  and  his  servant  had  been  hustled, 
jostled,  and  insulted.  If  the  book  was  blasphemous,  indecent, 
and  a dangerous  work  for  a king  to  have  written,  was  that  Vol- 
taire's fault  ? He  had  but  corrected  its  blunders  and  its  grammar. 
If  its  model  was  the  ‘ Pucelle  ' — the  royal  author  had  chosen  that 
model  himself.  Voltaire  suffered  for  the  King’s  imprudence  and 
for  the  King’s  official’s  folly.  He  was  in  a situation  not  too 
common  to  him — he  really  was  not  the  aggressor. 

The  following  day,  Thursday,  June  21,  the  Potsdam  mail 
arrived  bringing  orders  dated  June  16  from  Frederick — just 
returned  from  his  tour — that  Voltaire,  on  giving  his  promise  and 
a written  agreement  that  he  would  send  back  the  ‘ Poeshie  ’ to 
Freytag  within  a given  time,  and  without  making  any  copies  of 
it,  was  to  be  allowed  to  go  1 in  peace  and  with  civility.’ 

That  is  all  very  well,  thinks  fussy  Freytag.  But  when  the 
King  wrote  that,  he  did  not  know  this  Voltaire  had  set  at  naught 
his  Resident’s  solemn  authority  and  had  had  the  audacity  to  try 
and  escape.  He  must  wait  to  go  until  we  hear  what  the  King’s 
commands  are  when  he  knows  of  this  abominable  breach  of 
discipline. 

Voltaire,  goaded  to  desperation,  wrote  again  to  the  Margravine 
of  Bayreuth,  begging  her  to  send  to  his  Majesty  a most  indignant 
statement  of  the  wrongs  done  to  Madame  Denis — the  statement 
having  been  drawn  up  by  that  outraged  lady  herself.  As  a good 
niece,  she  also  wrote  again  passionately,  direct  to  the  King,  on 
behalf  of  her  uncle.  He  himself  implored  Freytag  in  quite 
humble  terms  to  at  least  let  them  go  back  to  the  ‘ Golden  Lion,’ 
which  was  a more  decent  habitation  than  the  ‘ Goat  ’ ; and, 
besides,  would  save  the  prisoners  from  paying  for  two  prisons. 


266 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1753 


A.  few  hours  after,  he  appealed  again  to  the  mercy  of  that 
harassed  and  unfortunate  jailer.  All  these  letters  are  of  June  21. 
It  must  have  been  a busy  day.  It  is  strange  that  at  such  a 
juncture  Voltaire  himself  did  not  write  direct  to  the  King.  It 
could  not  have  been  his  pride  that  prevented  him.  If  pride  was 
an  obstacle  in  the  way  of  attaining  his  end,  an  impulsive  Voltaire 
could  always  kick  it  aside.  Besides,  he  stooped  to  entreat  a Dorn 
and  a Freytag.  In  answer  to  his  requests  Madame  Denis  and 
Collini  were  allowed  to  go  out  of  doors.  But  Voltaire  was  kept  to 
his  room  in  that  wretched  ‘ Goat  ’ and  guarded  by  two  sentinels  as 
if  he  had  been  a dangerous  criminal  awaiting  hanging.  Four  days 
went  by.  Then,  on  June  25,  came  clearer  and  more  positive  orders 
from  Frederick  to  let  the  prisoners  go.  Frederick  was  sick  of  the 
business  and  ashamed  of  it.  But  still,  argues  Freytag,  when  he  sent 
those  orders,  he  did  not  know  of  the  attempt  to  escape.  So  the 
only  effect  of  them  was  that  the  guards  were  removed  from  the 
door,  and  Voltaire  was  put  on  his  honour  not  to  leave  the  room. 

The  chest  of  books  from  Strasburg  had  meanwhile  been 
opened ; and  the  ‘ Poeshie 1 extracted  therefrom.  But  for  the 
punctilious  idiocy  of  one  dull  official,  Voltaire  might  long  ago 
have  been  at  his  Plombieres  and  have  done  with  Prussia  for 
ever.  The  very  burgomaster  began  to  pity  him.  Frankfort  was 
near  regarding  him  as  a martyr.  Freytag,  a little  nervous, 
splendidly  allowed  the  captive  the  freedom  of  the  whole  inn  ; and 
then  he  and  that  captive  fought  tooth  and  nail  over  money 
matters.  For  Voltaire  had  not  only  endured  the  miseries  of 
arrest  and  detention,  but  had  had  to  pay  their  whole  expenses. 
He  and  Collini  swore  they  had  been  robbed  of  jewels,  money, 
and  papers,  and  of  various  trifles  as  well. 

On  July  5 — after  they  had  been  detained  thirty-five  days — 
came  sharp  orders  from  Potsdam  that  Voltaire  was  to  be  released 
at  once.  Even  a Freytag  could  doubt  and  delay  no  more.  On 
July  6 the  party  returned  to  the  4 Golden  Lion  * : where  Voltaire 
called  in  a lawyer  and  laid  before  him  a succinct  account  of  the 
events  of  those  five-and-thirty  days.  Collini  completed  their 
preparations  for  departure.  On  the  very  morning  when  they 
were  going,  the  impetuous  Voltaire  caught  sight  of  Dorn  passing 
his  door  and  rushed  out  at  him  with  a loaded  pistol.  Collini 
intervened.  They  had  been  in  scrapes  enough  already. 


At.  59] 


THE  COMEDY  OF  FRANKFORT 


267 


On  July  7,  1758,  Voltaire  and  Collini  left  Frankfort.  That 
fighting,  scrambling,  wearying  month  of  folly  and  indignity  was 
over.  The  same  night  they  reached  Mayence-on-the-Rhine — 
a city  which  knew  not  Frederick.  The  day  following,  Madame 
Denis  left  Frankfort  for  Paris. 

Nothing  is  more  remarkable  about  the  Frankfort  affair  than 
the  moderation  Voltaire,  considering  he  was  Voltaire,  displayed 
in  it.  When  the  Margravine  wrote  on  the  subject  to  her  brother 
and  described  Voltaire  as  ‘ intense  and  bilious  ’ and  ‘ capable  of 
every  imprudence/  the  description  was  not  unfair.  When  Frede- 
rick wrote  to  his  sister  and  said  plainly  that  Voltaire  and  Denis 
lied  in  their  descriptions  of  the  event  and  coloured  it  and  em- 
broidered on  it  to  suit  their  own  ends,  he  was  not  precisely  lying, 
though  he  was  not  precisely  truthful,  himself.  But  leaving  the 
account  of  Voltaire,  Madame  Denis,  and  Collini  altogether  alone, 
from  the  account  of  Frey  tag  the  prejudiced,  it  is  proved  that 
Voltaire  behaved,  all  things  considered,  with  a great  deal  of 
philosophy  and  an  unusual  amount  of  patience. 

Why? 

He  was  leaving  Prussia — with  enormous  difficulty  to  be  sure — 
but  he  was  leaving  it  at  last.  He  was  returning,  as  he  hoped,  to 
France.  He  had  made  a final  trial  of  courts  and  kings — and 
found  them  wanting.  Liberty  was  whispering  and  wooing  him 
again — the  siren  he  had  loved  and  deserted,  and  whom  he  was  to 
love  again  and  desert  no  more.  His  blessed  monotonous  work 
at  his  ‘ Annals  ’ made  him  ‘ forget  all  the  Frey  tags.’  For  five 
hours  a day,  whether  he  was  living  in  palaces  or  in  prison,  with 
princes  or  with  jailers,  he  ‘ laboured  tranquilly  ’ at  that  book. 
The  comic  side  of  the  situation  appealed  to  him.  He  knew,  or 
said  he  knew,  that  he  deserved  some  of  his  misfortunes.  And 
above  all — far  above  all  —the  dream  and  the  night  were  ending, 
and  with  the  dawn  of  a new  day  came  the  courage,  the  fight,  and 
the  energy  to  win  it. 


268 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1753 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

THE  ‘ ESSAY  ON  THE  MANNEKS  AND  MIND  OF  NATIONS  ’ 

The  arrival  of  Voltaire  at  Mayence  rang  down  the  curtain  upon 
the  greatest  act  of  one  of  the  most  famous  dramas  of  friendship 
in  the  world.  It  left  Frederick  enraged  : first  of  all  with  himself ; 
secondly,  with  blundering  Freytag,  whose  blunders  the  King  osten- 
sibly approved,  according  to  his  principle,  in  a formal  document 
written  for  that  purpose  ; and  only  thirdly  with  Voltaire.  With 
his  muse  taught  by  that  Voltaire,  Frederick  abused  the  teacher  in 
spiteful  epigrams,  and  then  dealt  him  a blow  which  shook  Vol- 
taire’s whole  life,  as  a lover  will  kill  the  mistress  who  has  been 
false  to  him  not  because  he  has  loved  her  too  little,  but  too  much. 

As  for  Voltaire,  he  was  both  angry  and  sorry.  In  that  mean, 
world-famous  story  of  their  quarrel  he  must  have  known  well 
enough  that  he  had  been  too  often  most  aggravating,  mechant , 
and  irrepressible.  Yet  that  letter  he  wrote  on  July  9 from 
Mayence  to  Madame  Denis,  seen  and  meant  to  be  seen  by 
Frederick,  gave  a view  of  the  situation  not  wholly  false.  The 
King  4 might  have  remembered  that  for  fifteen  years  he  wooed  me 
with  tender  favours ; that  in  my  old  age  he  drew  me  from  my 
country ; that  for  two  years  I worked  with  him  to  perfect  his 
talents  ; that  I have  served  him  well  and  failed  him  in  nothing  ; 
that  it  is  infinitely  below  his  rank  and  glory  to  take  part  in  an 
academical  quarrel  and  to  end  as  my  reward  by  demanding  his 
poems  from  me  at  the  hands  of  his  soldiers.’ 

Adoring  and  quarrelling,  passionately  admiring  and  yearning 
for  each  other  when  they  were  apart,  admiring  and  fighting  each 
other  when  they  were  together — that  is  the  history  of  the 
friendship  of  Frederick  and  Voltaire.  If  it  be  true  that  the  great 
are  no  mates  for  common  people,  still  less  are  they  mates  for 


JEt.  59]  ‘ MANNERS  AND  MIND  OF  NATIONS  ’ 


269 


each  other.  Even  in  fabled  Olympus,  gods  could  not  live  in  peace 
with  gods. 

It  is  not  unworthy  of  remark  that  their  connection  conferred 
far  greater  benefits  on  the  King  than  on  the  commoner.  Voltaire 
had  consistently  trained  and  taught  the  royal  intellect  from  that 
first  letter  written  in  August  1786  to  the  Prussian  heir-apparent. 
He  had  been  such  a master  as  kings  do  not  often  find — and  his 
royal  pupil  had  gained  from  him  such  advantages  as  kings  are 
seldom  wise  enough  to  use. 

But  for  Voltaire  himself — for  the  most  fruitful  literary  pro- 
ducer of  any  age — those  three  years  in  Prussia  were  compara- 
tively barren  and  unprofitable.  True,  in  1751  ‘ The  Century  of 
Louis  XIV.’  had  appeared  ; but  all  the  materials  for  it  had  been 
collected,  and  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the  book  written,  before 
Voltaire  came  to  Prussia  at  all.  The  ‘ Poem  on  Natural  Law  ’ 
(not  published  till  1756),  a few  improvements  to  ‘ Rome  Sauvee,’ 
the  beginnings  of  that  ‘ magnificent  dream,’  4 The  Philosophical 
Dictionary,’  were,  as  has  been  seen  (except  ‘ Akakia  ’),  his  only 
other  works  written  in  Prussia.  For  a while  the  author  of  the 
1 Henriade  ’ and  the  ‘ English  Letters  ’ was  chiefly  famous  as  the 
enemy  of  d’Arnaud,  Hirsch,  and  Maupertuis  ; as  the  hero  of  the 
low  comedy  of  Frankfort ; and  as  the  guest  ‘ who  put  his  host’s 
candle-ends  into  his  pockets.’ 

If  without  Voltaire  the  glory  of  Frederick  would  have  been 
something  less  glorious,  without  Frederick  the  great  Voltaire 
would  have  been  greater  still. 

Flourishing  Mayence,  with  its  Rhine  river  flowing  through  it, 
its  fine  castles,  its  fine  company,  its  indifference  to  the  opinion  of 
Frederick,  and  its  warm  enthusiasm  for  Frederick’s  guest,  friend, 
enemy,  might  well  have  seemed  Paradise  to  Voltaire.  He  was 
free.  His  social  French  soul  was  delighted  with  many  visitors. 
He  worked  hard  too.  He  spent  three  weeks  in  ‘ drying  his  clothes 
after  the  shipwreck,’  as  he  phrased  it  himself.  But  for  one  fear, 
he  would  have  been  happy.  It  was  not  only  in  Prussia  that 
Frederick  was  Frederick  the  Great.  His  name  was  everywhere 
a power  and  terror.  Why  should  prudent  France  embroil  herself 
with  the  greatest  of  European  sovereigns  for  the  sake  of  clasping 
to  her  breast  an  upstart  genius  who  was  always  making  mischief 
whether  he  was  at  home  or  abroad,  and  who  had  been  punished 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


270 


[1753 


for  his  abominable,  free,  daring,  unpalatable  opinions  a hundred 
times  without  changing  them  ? 

Voltaire  had  arrived  in  Mayence  on  July  7,  1758.  On  July  9 
he  was  writing  to  Madame  Denis  that  letter  for  the  public  eye  in 
which  he  gave  his  account  of  the  affair  with  Frederick ; and  went 
on  to  prove  that  he  had  never  been  a Prussian  subject,  or  any- 
thing but  a Frenchman  to  the  bottom  of  his  soul,  which  was  true 
enough ; and  to  assert,  the  truth  of  which  he  felt  to  be  very 
doubtful,  that  Frederick  would  be  the  first  to  ask  of  the  King  my 
master  (I  am  still  Gentleman-in-Ordinary,  you  will  be  pleased  to 
remember)  that  I may  be  allowed  to  end  my  days  in  my  native 
land.  Madame  Denis  was  working  hard  to  attain  that  same  end 
in  Paris  : and  thought  herself  likely  to  succeed.  Her  sufferings 
in  Frankfort  had  been  such  that  the  emotional  lady  had  to  be 
bled  four  times  in  a week,  she  said.  She  still  hoped,  in  italics, 
that  her  old  prophecy  that  the  King  of  Prussia  would  be  the  death 
of  Uncle  Voltaire  would  not  be  fulfilled  after  all ; and  recalled 
Frankfort  in  terms  so  agitating  that  there  was  no  wonder  her 
uncle — who  greatly  over-estimated  his  niece’s  goodness  in  coming 
to  him  there — harped  on  the  treatment  she  had  received,  on 
Frey  tag,  Fredersdorff,  and  the  ‘ Goat,’  in  every  letter  he  wrote. 
In  one  at  least,  written  at  this  period,  he  ominously  signed  him- 
self Gentleman  of  the  Chamber  of  the  King  of  France.  Voltaire 
was  coming  home. 

He  and  Collini  left  Mayence  on  July  28  for  Mannheim, 
where  Charles  Theodore,  the  Elector  Palatine,  had  invited  Voltaire 
to  stay  with  him.  They  passed  a night  at  Worms  en  route. 
Voltaire’s  spirits  were  light  enough  for  him  to  pretend  to  be  an 
Italian  for  the  benefit  of  the  Worms  innkeeper,  and  make  the 
supper  what  his  secretary  called  ‘ very  diverting.’  At  Mann- 
heim, the  Elector  Palatine’s  Court  being  in  the  country,  Voltaire 
spent  a short  time  putting  money  matters  in  order,  and  changing 
his  German  money  into  French.  He  was  nearly  in  his  ‘ patrie  ’ ; 
no  wonder  he  was  lighthearted.  In  a few  days  the  Elector 
fetched  him  to  Schwetzingen,  his  country  house,  where  was  held 
the  gayest  and  most  charming  of  little  Courts.  Voltaire  always 
dined  with  the  Elector,  and  after  dinner  read  aloud  to  him  one  of 
his  works.  There  were  fetes  and  concerts.  The  court  theatrical 
company  came  to  visit  the  author  of  ‘Zaire’  and  ‘ Alzire,’  of 


271 


jEt.  59]  ‘ MANNERS  AND  MIND  OF  NATIONS  ’ 

< Mahomet  * and  4 Merope.’  Four  of  his  own  plays  were  acted. 
He  was  only  too  delighted  to  show  the  actors  how  to  render 
this  passage,  and  give  to  that  character  its  true  weight  and 
significance.  He  began  here  (4  like  an  old  fool/  he  said)  a new 
love  drama  called  4 The  Orphan  of  China.’  If  liberty  was  the 
passion  of  his  life,  the  drama  was  the  pet  child  of  his  leisure.  An 
agreeable  fortnight  passed  away.  The  distinguished  guest  was 
taken  to  see  the  Elector’s  library  at  Mannheim  and  presented  to 
it  the  companion  volume  to  that  ill-omened  4 Poeshie  ’ of  the 
King  my  master — Frederick’s  4 Memoirs  of  the  House  of  Bran- 
denburg.’ 

While  unconscious  Voltaire  was  still  at  Schwetzingen,  train- 
ing actors,  or  reading  the  4 Annals  ’ to  the  Elector,  d’Argenson, 
Voltaire’s  old  school  friend  and  member  of  the  French  Cabinet, 
recorded  in  his  diary  4 Permission  to  re-enter  France  is  refused 
to  M.  de  Voltaire  ...  to  please  the  King  of  Prussia.’ 

On  August  16  Voltaire  and  Collini  reached  Strasburg  and  put 
up  there  at  a poor  little  inn  called  the  4 White  Bear/  because  it 
was  kept  by  the  father  of  a waiter  at  the  inn  at  Mayence ; and 
goodnatured  Voltaire  had  promised  to  patronise  it  to  oblige  him. 
He  moved  shortly  to  a little  house  outside  the  city  gate,  and 
received  there  everyone  of  note  in  Strasburg. 

He  was  still  hard  at  work  on  the  4 Annals.’  He  spent  the 
evening  sometimes  with  the  agreeable  Countess  de  Lutzelburg, 
who  lived  near.  He  took  counsel  about  his  4 Annals  ’ with 
Schoepflin,  the  German  historian.  Altogether  he  would  have 
passed  a couple  of  months  quite  after  his  heart — if — if — Madame 
Denis  had  been  able  to  tell  him  that  it  was  safe  for  him  to  pro- 
ceed further  into  France.  Alsace  was  the  border-line.  On  it 
was  written,  it  seemed,  4 Thus  far  shalt  thou  come,  but  no  further.’ 
But  still — patience,  patience  ! Voltaire  did  not  yet  despair.  He 
knew  nothing  of  that  entry  in  d’Argenson’s  diary.  But  much 
bitter  experience  had  taught  him  that  discretion  is  the  better  part 
of  valour.  On  October  2 he  left  Strasburg,  and  arrived  the  same 
evening  at  Colmar. 

Colmar  was  a well-chosen  spot  for  several  reasons.  One  was 
that  Schoepflin ’s  brother,  who  was  a printer,  was  going  to  print 
Voltaire’s  4 Annals  ’ for  him  there.  Another  was  that  Colmar 
had  plenty  of  agreeable  literary  society.  And  a third — and  most 


272 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1753 


important — it  was  very  conveniently  situated  for  the  receipt  of 
Madame  Denis’s  communications.  Within  a drive  of  it  was 
Lun6ville.  Two  days’  journey  from  it  was  Cirey.  Its  upper 
classes  all  spoke  French.  And  though  the  Jesuits  were  no  small 
power  in  it,  Voltaire  seems  to  have  forgotten  that  unpleasant 
little  fact,  when  he  came.  He  went  into  modest  rooms  ; and  was 
his  own  housekeeper,  with  a young  peasant  girl  called  Babet, 
whose  gaiety,  simplicity,  and  volubility  much  entertained  him, 
as  cook.  He  played  chess  after  dinner  with  Collini.  His  way  of 
life  delighted  tastes  always  modest ; and  his  health  improved 
rapidly.  He  drew  plans  for  his  ‘ Orphan.’  With  a brilliant 
play  he  had  successfully  defied  his  enemies  before.  Why  not 
again?  But  the  dramatic  muse  required  much  wooing  this 
time ; and  the  most  versatile  writer  in  the  world  began  compiling 
articles  for  the  ‘ Encyclopaedia  ’ instead. 

In  this  October  Voltaire  buried  himself  in  the  village  of 
Luttenbach,  near  Colmar,  for  a fortnight,  where  he  was  happy 
enough  proof-correcting  his  ‘ Annals  ’ and  still  hoping  for  good 
news  from  France.  On  October  28  he  came  back  to  Colmar, 
had  a fit  of  the  gout,  and,  as  usual,  gaily  bemoaned  his  ill-health 
in  all  his  letters. 

He  still  liked  Colmar.  He  still  thought  he  was  creeping 
home.  Prussia  was  behind  him  ; and,  though  he  was  nearly 
sixty  years  old  and  always  talked  of  himself  as  dying,  he  knew 
there  was  still  a world  before. 

And  then,  in  this  December  of  1758,  Fate  struck  him  one  of 
those  stunning  blows  she  had  too  often  dealt  him. 

Just  as  he  was  hoping  for  the  best,  as  his  friends  in  Paris 
were  straining  every  nerve  to  smooth  the  way  for  his  return,  as  he 
was  laboriously  wooing  the  histrionic  muse  that  he  might  cap- 
tivate the  capital  with  a comedy  ; just  as  he  had  renounced 
Frederick  and  Prussia  and  remembered  that  he  was  Gentleman- 
in- Ordinary  to  his  French  Majesty  and  a Frenchman  body  and 
soul,  and  no  Prussian  after  all,  there  appeared  at  The  Hague,  in 
a shamefully  incorrect  pirated  edition,  the  most  ambitious,  the 
most  voluminous,  the  most  characteristic,  and  the  most  daring  of 
all  Voltaire’s  works,  the  ‘ Essay  on  the  Manners  and  Mind  of 
Nations.’ 

If  Madame  du  Chatelet  ‘ despised  history  a little,’  it  had  not 


Mt.  59]  4 MANNERS  AND  MIND  OF  NATIONS  ’ 


27  ‘3 


the  less  been  her  and  her  lover's  chief  employment  at  Cirey. 
4 The  Century  of  Louis  XIV.’  was  not  enough  to  occupy  such  an 
energy  as  Voltaire’s.  That  cramped  him  to  one  time  and  to  one 
country.  And  behold  ! there  was  the  world  to  look  back  upon  ; 
the  history  of  all  nations  to  study — the  progress  of  mankind  to 
regard  as  a whole. 

The  ‘ Essay  on  the  Manners  and  Mind  of  Nations  ’ is  of  all 
Voltaire’s  works  the  one  which  has  exerted  the  most  powerful 
influence  on  the  mind  of  men.  On  July  10,  1791,  when  his 
body  was  taken  to  Paris  and  placed  on  the  ruins  of  the  Bastille 
on  the  very  spot  where  he  himself  had  been  a prisoner,  on  the 
funeral  car  were  written  the  memorable  words,  1 He  gave  the 
human  mind  a great  impetus : he  prepared  us  for  freedom.’ 
That  line  might  have  served  as  the  motto  of  his  great  essay.  It 
prepared  men  for  freedom.  It  records  the  history  of  human 
progress  from  Charlemagne  to  Louis  XIII.  It  was  the  first 
history  which  dealt  not  with  kings,  the  units,  but  with  the  great, 
panting,  seething  masses  they  ruled  ; which  took  history  to  mean 
the  advance  of  the  whole  human  race — a general  view  of  the  great 
march  of  all  nations  towards  light  and  liberty.  It  was  the  first 
history  which  struck  out  boldly,  and  hit  prejudice  and  oppression 
a staggering  blow  from  which  they  have  not  yet  recovered.  Yet 
its  style  is  infinitely  frank,  gay,  and  daring.  It  is  such  easy 
reading,  so  light,  clear,  and  sarcastic.  It  is  the  one  book  of  its 
kind  the  frivolous  will  finish  for  pleasure.  It  has  such  a jesting 
manner  to  hide  its  weighty  matter.  It  is  infinitely  significant ; 
and  yet  sounds  as  if  it  were  simply  meant  to  be  amusing.  It  is 
said  that  Voltaire  put  it  into  such  a form  to  overcome  Madame 
du  Chatelet’s  dislike  of  history.  But  it  was  his  lifelong  principle 
as  a writer  that  to  be  dull  is  the  greatest  of  all  errors.  He  was 
always  wishing  that  Newton  had  written  vaudevilles  ; and  pray- 
ing that  his  own  taste  might  never  be  ‘ stifled  with  study.’ 
What  Frederick  the  Great  called  the  ‘ effervescence  of  his  genius  ’ 
bubbles  over  in  the  ‘ Essay  on  the  Manners  and  Mind  of  Nations,’ 
as  in  all  his  works.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  easy 
reading  means  hard  writing ; and  that  this  ‘ picture  of  the 
centuries,’  this  ‘history  of  the  human  mind,’  needed,  as  its 
author  declared,  ‘ the  patience  of  a Benedictine  and  the  pen  of  a 
Bossuet.’  When  he  wrote  4 Finis  ’ on  the  last  page  of  the  last 

T 


274 


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[1753-54 


edition  in  1775,  the  book  numbered  six  volumes,  and  was  in 
every  sense  the  greatest  of  its  author’s  works.  Parton  has  justly 
said  that  to  it  4 Grote,  Niebuhr,  Gibbon,  Colenso,  and  especially 
Buckle,  are  all  indebted.’  That  it  is  full  of  mistakes  which  any 
fairly  well-educated  person  of  to-day  could  easily  correct  does 
not  make  it  a less  extraordinary  production  for  the  age  in  which 
it  was  produced.  That  it  is  now  obsolete,  only  proves  how 
thoroughly  it  accomplished  its  aim.  The  great  new  truths  for 
which  Voltaire  fought  with  his  life  in  his  hand  are  the  common- 
places and  the  truisms  of  to-day. 

But  then  he  made  them  so. 

Jean  Neaulme,  the  pirate  publisher  at  The  Hague,  said  he  had 
bought  the  manuscript  from  a servant  of  Prince  Charles  of 
Lorraine — Charles  having  obtained  it  either  by  persuasion  or 
treachery  from  Frederick  the  Great.  Voltaire  had  given  a manu- 
script copy  of  the  book  to  his  royal  friend.  In  his  present  state  of 
mind,  it  was  only  natural  he  should  suspect  Frederick  of  foul  play. 

However  this  might  be,  the  thing  was  printed.  It  was  called, 
and  miscalled,  ‘ An  Abridgment  of  Universal  History.’  It  was 
filled  from  end  to  end  with  astounding,  and,  very  often,  wilful 
blunders.  It  confused  the  eighth  century  with  the  fourth,  and 
the  twelfth  with  the  thirteenth,  and  Boniface  VIII.  with  Boni- 
face VII.  The  unhappy  author,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  called  it 
‘ the  disgrace  of  literature.’  He  had,  of  course,  never  corrected  the 
proofs.  Since  writing  that  first  manuscript,  intrusted  to  Frederick, 
he  had  written  other  manuscripts  wherein  he  had  not  only  modi- 
fied but  actually  changed  his  first  ideas.  This  time  at  least, 
when  he  followed  his  old  plan  of  loudly  disavowing  the  work,  he 
had  much  justification.  The  * pretended  Universal  History,’  as 
he  called  it,  was  his  ‘ Essay,’  but  so  mauled  and  disfigured  he 
may  be  forgiven  for  refusing  to  acknowledge  it. 

But  far  stronger  than  any  merely  literary  reasons  for  denying 
such  a paternity  was  the  bold,  free-spoken  character  of  this  son 
of  his  genius.  Voltaire  knew  that  no  work  he  had  ever  written 
would  so  bar  his  way  back  to  his  country  as  this  one.  Every 
line  glowed  with  some  truth  hateful  to  Boyers  and  to  tyranny. 
There  was  never  any  mistaking  a Voltaire’s  meaning.  Now, 
more  than  ever,  he  had  written  in  luminous  words  which,  like 
sunbeams,  being  much  condensed,  greatly  burnt.  His  principles 


JEt.  59-60]  ‘ MANNERS  AND  MIND  OF  NATIONS  ’ 275 


were  as  lucid  as  daylight.  There  was  hardly  a phrase  which 
would  not  draw  upon  him  4 the  implacable  wrath  of  the  clergy.* 
How  could  he  forget  in  it  such  remarks  as  the  following — 4 Rome 
has  always  decided  for  the  opinion  which  most  degraded  the 
human  mind  and  most  completely  annihilated  human  reason  * ? 

4 Whoso  thinks  makes  others  think.* 

How  could  he  help  remembering  that  he  had  taken  the 
Protestant  Reformation  as  a new  tyranny — not  an  emancipation  ; 
that  he  had  degraded  war  4 from  the  highest  to  the  lowest  place 
in  the  historian*s  regard  * ; and  had  declared  that  4 Tyrants  sacri- 
fice the  human  race  to  an  individual  ’ — a dangerous  sentence  in 
itself,  and  which  that  abominable  pirate  publisher  had  rendered 
a thousand  times  more  dangerous  by  misquoting  as  4 Kings  sacri- 
fice the  human  race  to  a caprice  ’ ? He  had  offended  every 
powerful  class,  and  every  cherished  prejudice.  But  action  was 
now,  not  less  than  ever,  his  forte . If  it  could  not  save  him  from 
his  enemies,  it  could  save  him  from  himself — from  that  worst 
combination,  idleness  with  misery. 

On  December  28,  1758,  he  wrote  to  Neaulme,  and  told 
M.  Jean  his  candid  opinion  about  that  edition.  He  also  wrote  not 
a little  piteously,  a very  few  days  after,  to  his  old  friend  Madame 
de  Pompadour — the  publication  of  that  4 Essay  * forcing  him  to 
prove,  he  said,  his  innocence  to  his  master  the  King — of  France. 

But  it  was  in  vain  he  reminded  Louis  XV.,  through  her,  that  he 
had  spent  years  of  his  life  in  writing  the  history  of  Louis’  prede- 
cessor ; 4 and  alone  of  the  Academicians  had  had  his  panegyric 
translated  into  five  languages.*  That  surly  Bourbon,  with  that 
intuition  which  saved  his  degraded  race  a hundred  times  from 
earlier  and  completer  ruin,  saw  in  the  genius  of  Voltaire  the 
fuse  which  was  to  set  ablaze  the  gunpowder  of  sedition  and 
misery  with  which  his  France  was  undermined.  He  turned  to 
Madame  de  Pompadour  and  said  that  he  4 did  not  wish  ’ Voltaire 
to  return  to  Paris.  It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  the  exile’s  state 
of  mind.  4 1 have  no  comfort  but  in  work  and  solitude,’  he 
wrote ; and  to  Cideville  on  January  28  of  this  new  year  1754 : 

4 My  dear  Cideville,  at  our  age  one  must  mock  at  everything  and 
live  for  self.  This  world  is  a great  shipwreck.  Sauve  qui  jpeut ! 
but  I am  far  from  the  shore.’ 

On  what  shore  would  he  be  allowed  to  land  if  he  could  gain  one? 


276 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1754 


Colmar,  he  soon  discovered,  was  ‘a  town  of  Hottentots 
governed  by  German  Jesuits.’  On  February  17  he  wrote  a very 
meek,  artful  letter  to  one  of  those  Jesuits,  Father  Menou  (whom 
he  had  known  at  the  Court  of  Stanislas  and  of  whom  he  speaks 
in  his  ‘ Memoirs  ’ as  ‘ the  boldest  and  most  intriguing  priest  I 
ever  knew  ’),  pleading  his  cause  with  him.  He  pleaded  it,  too, 
with  the  Archbishop  of  Paris  through  M.  de  Malesherbes.  But 
it  was  all  in  vain.  The  Church  was  as  offended  as  the  King. 

On  February  20,  pushed  to  extremity,  and  neither  able  to 
leave  nor  to  stay  in  this  wretched  Colmar  without  the  sanction 
of  his  French  Majesty,  the  unhappy  man  asked  d’Argenson  to 
‘ sound  the  King’s  indulgence  ’ — to  know  if  he  might  travel. 

On  February  22  he  called  in  two  notaries,  who  compared  the 
correct  manuscript  of  his  ‘ Essay  ’ with  the  two  incorrect  volumes 
published  at  The  Hague ; and  drew  up  a formal  declaration  in 
which  they  affirmed  that  the  Dutch  edition  was  ‘ surreptitious, 
full  of  errors,  and  worthy  of  all  contempt,’  and  that  the  real 
‘ Essay  ’ was  at  least  eight  times  longer  than  the  false  one.  But 
that  also  was  useless.  Neither  Court  nor  Catholic  meant  to  be 
convinced. 

Then,  as  if  her  uncle’s  cup  of  misfortune  were  not  brimming 
over  already,  niece  Denis’s  bad  management  and  extravagance 
with  his  money  in  Paris  forced  him  to  appoint  an  agent  to  look 
after  her  affairs  ; and  she,  living  on  his  bounty,  turned  and 
accused  him  of  avarice.  No  public  wrongs  are  so  cruel  as  private 
ones.  Beside  Madame  Denis’s  ingratitude,  excommunication, 
said  Voltaire,  would  have  been  a light  penalty.  He  had  given 
her  an  ample  fortune — a larger  one  than  old  Maitre  Arouet  had 
left  his  Voltaire.  Her  reproaches  were  the  unkindest  cut  of  all. 

That  they  were  singularly  ill-timed  may  be  gathered  from  the 
fact  that  sixty  thousand  francs  of  Voltaire’s  income  were  derived 
from  annuities  or  bonds  of  the  City  of  Paris,  of  which  at  any 
moment  angry  Louis  might  deprive  him,  by  a line  of  writing  and 
the  royal  signature,  for  ever.  Two  kings  were  now  his  enemies. 
Jesuitical  Colmar  hated  him.  Prussia  and  France  were  barred 
to  him.  Denis  had  turned  upon  him.  The  Pompadour  was 
helpless.  The  ‘ Essay,’  filled  with  blunders  and  pregnant  with 
daring  and  danger,  was  all  over  Europe.  Such  was  Voltaire’s 
position  in  the  month  of  March  1754. 


jEt.  60] 


277 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

THE  ARRIVAL  IN  SWITZERLAND 

Receiving  no  answer  to  his  request  to  be  allowed  to  travel, 
Voltaire  prudently  resolved  to  consider  that  silence  gave  consent. 
But  he  was  still  not  a little  nervous  that  if  he  took  refuge  in 
a foreign  country  Louis  XV.  might  consider  himself  justified  in 
seizing  the  pensions  of  his  truant  subject. 

And  then,  where  was  he  to  go  ? It  seems  most  likely  that  if 
it  had  not  been  for  that  unromantic  disorder  called  mal  de  mer 
he  would  have  ended  his  days  in  Pennsylvania.  He  had  still  his 
bizarre  liking  for  the  Quakers  ; and  America  was  the  country  of 
the  free.  To  be  sure  mal  du  pays  was  a worse  and  a longer 
lived  disorder  with  him  than  the  other  : and  if  he  had  tried 
Pennsylvania  on  one  impulse,  he  would  quickly  have  left  it  on 
another. 

He  looked  back  lovingly,  too,  on  bold  little  England,  1 where 
one  thinks  as  a free  man.’  And  on  March  19,  1754,  he  asked 
M.  Polier  de  Bottens,  who  had  been  a Calvinist  minister  at  Lau- 
sanne, if  he  could  assure  him  of  as  much  freedom  in  Lausanne 
as  in  Britain.  Meanwhile,  there  was  no  reason  why,  in  the  near 
future,  that  long-deferred  and  greatly  discussed  Plombieres  visit 
should  not  take  place. 

And,  for  the  time,  he  was  in  Colmar.  On  January  12  of  this 
year  he  had  sent  his  Duchess  of  Saxe-Gotha  twelve  advance 
copies  of  those  ‘ Annals  of  the  Empire  1 written  at  her  request, 
and  just  printed  under  Voltaire’s  own  eye  at  Colmar  by  Schoepflin. 
In  return,  Madame  had  done  her  gracious  best  to  reconcile  him 
with  Frederick.  He  was  anxious  to  be  reconciled.  Frederick 
could  influence  France  to  receive  back  her  prodigal,  as  could  no 
one  else.  ‘ Brother  Voltaire,’  as  he  signed  himself  in  his  letters 
to  her,  also  pleaded  his  cause  once  more  with  the  Margravine  of 


278 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1754 


Bayreuth ; and  then  sent  Frederick  himself  a copy  of  those 
‘ Annals 9 as  a tentative  olive  branch.  Frederick  accepted  the 
book,  and  declined  the  peace  overtures  in  a letter,  dated  March  16, 
1754,  which  contained  bitter  allusion  to  the  Maupertuis  affair 
and  showed  that  the  kingly  heart  was  still  sore  and  that  the 
kingly  soul  still  angrily  admired  the  great  gifts  of  his  Voltaire. 

The  famous  suppers  ‘ went  to  the  devil  ’ without  him.  But 
if  the  King  missed  his  wit  much,  he  dreaded  it  more ; and  if 
Voltaire  wanted  the  King’s  powerful  friendship — he  did  not  want 
the  King’s  society.  They  were  better  apart.  And,  for  the  first 
time,  both  were  wise  enough  to  know  it. 

To  this  spring  belongs  a very  active  correspondence  between 
Voltaire,  the  most  voluble  # correspondent  who  ever  put  pen  to 
paper,  and  Madame  du  Deffand.  Blind,  bored,  and  brilliant,  the 
friend  of  Horace  Walpole,  a courtier  at  Sceaux,  and  the  head  of 
one  of  the  most  famous  salons  in  Paris,  Madame  du  Deffand  had 
long  been  a friend  of  Voltaire’s,  and  had  visited  him  in  the 
Bastille  in  1726,  just  before  his  exile  in  England. 

If  she  thought,  as  Frederick  the  Great  wrote  to  Darget  on 
April  1 of  this  same  year  1754,  that  Voltaire  was  ‘ good  to  read 
and  bad  to  know,’  her  cynic  old  soul  loved  his  wit  if  she  feared  it. 
Perhaps  she  even  loved  him — though  mistrustingly.  Blindness 
had  just  fallen  upon  her.  And  ‘ the  hermit  of  Colmar  ’ — neither 
now  nor  ever  only  mechant — wrote  to  her  with  the  finest  sym- 
pathy and  tact,  cheering,  amusing,  rallying  her.  ‘ My  eyes  were  a 
little  wet  when  I read  what  had  happened  to  yours.  ...  If  you  are 
an  annuitant,  Madame,  take  care  of  yourself,  eat  little,  go  to  bed 
early,  and  live  to  be  a hundred,  if  only  to  enrage  those  who  pay 
your  annuities.  For  my  part,  it  is  the  only  pleasure  I have  left. 
I reflect,  when  I feel  an  indigestion  coming  on,  that  two  or  three 
princes  will  gain  by  my  death : and  I take  courage  out  of  pure 
malice  and  conspire  against  them  with  rhubarb  and  sobriety.’ 

As  Voltaire  could  have  had  nothing  to  gain  by  continually 
writing  to  amuse  this  blind  old  mondaine , it  may  be  conceded 
that  he  did  it  out  of  kindness  ; and  that  if  he  loved  her  cleverness, 
he  also  pitied  her  misfortune.  The  eighteenth  century,  which 
failed  so  dismally  in  all  other  domestic  relationships,  perfectly 
understood  the  art  of  friendship. 

On  the  Easter  Day  of  this  1754,  Voltaire,  having  first  con- 


JSt.  60]  THE  ARRIVAL  IN  SWITZERLAND 


279 


fessed  to  a Capuchin  monk,  received  the  Sacrament.  Faire  ses 
Pdqices  declares  the  laxest  Catholic  to  be  still  a son  of  the  Church. 
What  Voltaire’s  motives  were  in  this  action,  it  is  not  easy  to  see. 
It  is  said  that  his  anxious  friends  in  Paris  recommended  the 
action  as  an  answer  to  the  charges  of  unbelief  brought  against 
him.  But  a Voltaire  must  have  known  well  enough  that  such  an 
answer  as  that  would  impose  on  no  one.  Besides,  it  was  not  like 
him  to  be  governed  by  the  advice  of  fools — even  if  they  happened 
to  be  his  friends.  The  reasons  he  himself  gave  for  the  action 
were  that  at  Rome  one  must  do  as  Rome  does.  ‘ When  men  are 
surrounded  by  barbarians  . . . one  must  imitate  their  contor- 
tions. . . . Some  people  are  afraid  to  touch  spiders,  others 
swallow  them.’  ‘If  I had  a hundred  thousand  men,  I know 
exactly  what  I should  do  : but  I have  not,  so  I shall  communicate 
at  Easter,  and  you  can  call  me  a hypocrite  as  much  as  you  like.’ 

The  hypocrisy  was  but  ill  acted.  Voltaire  received  the  Sacra- 
ment with  an  irreverence  painful  to  believers  and  harmful  to  his 
own  reputation.  To  him  the  thing  was  a jest — ‘ the  contortions 
of  barbarians.’  He  was  quite  mocking  and  gay.  When  he  got 
home,  he  sent  to  the  Capuchin  convent  a dozen  of  good  wine  and 
a loin  of  veal.  I despise  you  too  much  to  be  ill-natured  to  you  ! 
If  you  believe  in  this  mummery,  you  are  fools  ! If  you  connive 
at  it,  unbelieving,  you  are  knaves  ! Knaves  or  fools,  I can  laugh 
at  you  quite  good-humouredly.  If  ever  present  conveyed  a 
message,  this  was  the  message  conveyed  by  the  dozen  of  wine 
and  the  loin  of  veal. 

To  justify  Voltaire  for  this  act  is  not  possible.  It  was  at  best 
a mechancete.  It  was  the  mocking,  jesting  nature  of  the  man 
getting  tfce  upper  hand  alike  of  his  prudence  and  of  his  con- 
sideration for  others.  He  was  himself  a Deist,  and  a firmly 
convinced  Deist.  To  him  the  religion  of  Rome  was  not  merely 
a folly  but  the  stronghold  of  tyranny  and  of  darkness.  The  fact 
that  millions  of  faithful  souls  had  found  in  her  bosom  consola- 
tion for  the  sorrows,  and  a key  to  the  mysteries  of  life  and  of 
death,  did  not  soften  him. 

In  Voltaire  was  lacking  now  and  ever  that  ‘ crown  of  man’s 
moral  manhood,’  reverence.  To  find  in  ‘ the  last  restraint  of  the 
powerful  and  the  last  hope  of  the  wretched  ’ only  subject  for  a 
laugh  was  the  greatest  of  his  faults.  If  he  had  been  a nobler 


28  0 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1754 


nature,  he  would  have  seen  the  beauty  and  the  virtue  which  lie 
even  in  the  most  degrading  theologies  : and  respecting  them, 
would  have  stayed  his  hand  from  the  smashing  blow,  and  for  the 
sake  of  the  virtue  which  sweetens  corruption,  have  let  corruption 
alone. 

It  has  been  done  many  times.  ‘ No  man  can  achieve  great 
things  for  his  country  without  some  loss  of  the  private  virtues.’ 
A reverent  Voltaire — what  a contradiction  in  terms ! — to  spare 
some  goodness,  must  have  spared  much  vice.  To  arouse 
eighteenth-century  France,  steeped  to  her  painted  lips  in  super- 
stition, and  the  slavery  which  had  debased  her  till  she  came  to 
love  it,  the  shrieks  and  the  blasphemies  of  a Voltaire  and  a 
Rousseau  were  necessary.  No  calmer  voice  would  have  woke  her 
from  her  narcotic  sleep.  ‘Without  Voltaire  and  Rousseau  there 
would  have  been  no  Revolution.’  No  honest  student  of  eighteenth- 
century  France  can  doubt  that  that  Revolution,  though  it  crushed 
the  innocent  with  the  guilty  and  left  behind  it  some  of  the  worst 
fruits  of  anarchy,  left  behind  it  too  a France  which,  with  all  its 
faults,  is  a thousand  times  better  than  the  France  it  found. 

By  the  middle  of  April  the  Plombieres  arrangements  were 
well  advanced.  The  d’Argental  household  was  to  be  there  ; and 
Madame  Denis,  more  or  less  penitent  and  more  or  less  forgiven, 
had  asked  to  join  the  party.  The  waters  would  be  good  for  a 
health — ruined,  said  her  temperate  uncle,  by  ‘ remedies  and 
gourmandising.’  Voltaire  would  come,  with  a couple  of  servants 
at  the  most.  He  was  anticipating  the  change  with  pleasure 
when  at  the  very  last  minute  Madame  Denis  wrote  to  tell  him 
that  Maupertuis  was  at  Plombieres  too.  It  was  certainly  not  big 
enough  to  hold  both  him  and  his  enemy.  The  events  of  the  last 
months  had  taught  even  Voltaire  some  kind  of  caution.  He  was 
absolutely  en  partant  when  Madame  Denis’s  letter  came  ; but  on 
June  8,  though  he  left  Colmar,  it  was  to  stop  halfway  between  it 
and  Plombieres,  at  the  Abbey  of  Senones,  as  the  guest  of  Dom 
Calmet,  who  had  himself  been  a visitor  at  Cirey.  Calmet  had  a 
splendid  library.  His  visitor,  who  was  condemned,  as  he  said,  to 
work  at  a correct  edition  of  that  ‘ General  History,  printed  for 
my  misfortune,’  made  good  use  of  it,  during  his  three  weeks’ 
visit.  Absurd  reports  were  noised  abroad — which  the  Dom  did 
not  contradict — that  he  had  converted  ‘ the  most  pronounced 


Mt.  60]  THE  ARRIVAL  IN  SWITZERLAND 


281 


Deist  in  Europe.’  But,  as  the  Deist  himself  said,  his  business 
was  with  the  library — not  with  matins  and  vespers.  Directly 
Maupertuis  left  Plombieres,  Voltaire  took  leave  of  Calmet  and 
his  monks,  and  on  some  day  not  earlier  than  July  2 left  for 
Plombieres,  where  he  found  not  only  his  dear  d’Argentals  and 
Madame  Denis,  but  her  sister,  Madame  de  Fontaine,  as  well. 

The  little  party  passed  here  an  agreeable  fortnight  or  so. 
About  July  22,  Voltaire  returned  to  Colmar  with  Madame  Denis, 
who  from  this  time  forth  managed,  or  mismanaged,  his  house 
for  him  till  his  death.  The  ‘ Universal  History  ’ greatly  occupied 
him  after  his  holiday.  But  there  was  another  subject  which  was 
even  more  engrossing. 

It  was  the  idea  of  living  in  Switzerland.  Since  March  the 
plan  of  seeking  ‘an  agreeable  tomb  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Geneva,’  or  possibly  near  Lausanne,  had  been  growing — growing. 
There  were  many  reasons  why  the  little  republic  was  a suitable 
home  for  Voltaire.  In  the  first  place,  it  was  a republic.  It  was 
quite  close  to  France,  though  not  in  it ; and  though  France 
might  not  like  to  have  such  a firebrand  as  Voltaire  burning  in 
her  midst,  she  would  not  object  to  be  lit  by  his  light  if  it  were 
burning  near. 

Then  Switzerland  was  Protestant — and  in  Voltaire’s  English 
experience  of  Protestantism  he  had  found  that  faith  singularly 
tolerant  and  easy-going— in  practice,  that  is,  not  in  principle. 
By  August  he  was  negotiating  actively  with  M.  de  Brenles,  a 
lawyer  of  Lausanne*  about  ‘ a rather  pretty  property  ’ on  the  lake 
of  Geneva.  It  was  called  Allamans ; and  Voltaire  was  not  a 
little  disappointed  when  his  negotiations  for  buying  it  fell 
through.  In  October  he  was  inquiring  if  a Papist  could  not 
possess  and  bequeath  land  in  the  territory  of  Lausanne.  He 
urged  secrecy  on  de  Brenles  ; and  entered  fully  into  money 
matters.  If  he  bought  land,  it  was  to  be  in  the  name  of  his  niece, 
Madame  Denis.  There  was  a danger  throughout  these  months 
of  that  bomb  the  ‘ Pucelle  ’ bursting — into  print — ‘ and  killing 
me.’  That  fear  made  the  Swiss  arrangements  go  forward  with 
a will. 

On  October  28,  Voltaire  went  to  supper  at  a poor  tavern  of 
Colmar,  called  the  ‘ Black  Mountain,’  with  no  less  a personage 
than  his  friend  Wilhelmina  of  Bayreuth.  She  overwhelmed  him 


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[1754 


with  kindness  and  attention ; asked  him  to  stay  with  her ; begged 
she  might  see  Madame  Denis,  and  made  a thousand  excuses  for 
the  bad  behaviour  of  brother  Frederick ; so  that  impulsive 
Voltaire  jumped  once  more  to  that  favourite  conclusion  of  his 
that  ‘ women  are  worth  more  than  men.’  To  be  sure,  if  he  had 
seen  an  account  of  the  interview  his  clever  Princess  wrote  to  her 
brother,  he  might  have  thought  something  less  highly  of  her  and 
her  sex.  But  he  did  not  see  it ; nor  Frederick’s  bitter  reply.  If 
he  had,  neither  flattery  nor  opprobrium  would  have  moved  him 
now  from  one  fixed  resolve — to  shelter  in  Switzerland. 

On  November  11,  Voltaire,  Coliini,  Madame  Denis,  a lady’s 
maid,  and  a servant  left  Colmar  to  visit  the  Duke  of  Richelieu  at 
Lyons.  Voltaire  had  lived  at  Colmar  on  and  off  for  thirteen 
months — among  Jesuits  who  five  years  earlier  had  publicly  burnt 
the  works  of  Bayle,  the  prophet  of  tolerance.  He  could  not  have 
left  with  regret.  Just  as  they  were  starting  off,  Coliini  declares 
that  his  master,  finding  the  travelling  carriage  overladen  with 
luggage,  gave  orders  that  everything  should  be  taken  out  except 
his  own  trunk  and  Madame  Denis’ ; and  that  he  told  Coliini  to 
sell  his  portmanteau  and  its  contents.  The  hot-tempered  young 
Italian  refused  to  do  so,  and  gave  notice  on  the  spot.  On  his 
own  showing,  his  impetuous  master  made  at  once  the  handsomest 
apologies  for  his  little  burst  of  temper  ; gave  the  secretary  gene- 
rous presents  of  money  as  a peace-offering  ; and  made  him 
re-pack  his  portmanteau  and  put  it  back  in  the  carriage.  The 
storm  blew  over ; but  Coliini,  like  almost  all  Voltaire’s  servants, 
was  beginning  to  take  advantage  of  his  master’s  indulgence,  and 
to  trespass  on  a kindness  which  Voltaire  made  doubly  kind  to 
compensate  for  his  irritability. 

By  November  15,  the  party  were  installed  in  a very  bad  inn, 
called  the  ‘ Palais  Royal,’  at  Lyons.  Voltaire  complained  that  it 
was  ‘ a little  too  much  of  a joke  for  a sick  man  to  come  a hundred 
lieues  to  talk  to  the  Marechal  de  Richelieu.’  But  he  and  Richelieu 
were  not  only  very  old  friends  but,  in  spite  of  little  disagreements 
such  as  that  affair  of  the  ‘ Panegyric  of  Louis  XV.’  at  Court  in 
1749,  very  faithful  friends.  The  brilliant  author  and  the  brilliant 
soldier  had  still  for  each  other  the  attraction  which  had  been 
potent  twenty  years  earlier  in  those  June  days  at  Montjeu,  when 
Voltaire  had  negotiated  the  marriage  between  Mademoiselle  de 


^Et.  60]  THE  ARRIVAL  IN  SWITZERLAND 


283 


Guise  and  the  gallant  Duke.  The  charming  wife  had  died 
young  ; and  her  husband  and  Voltaire  had  met  little  of  late. 
But  Voltaire  received  Richelieu  in  the  bad  inn,  and  clever 
Richelieu  made  the  five  days  he  stayed  at  Lyons  so  infinitely 
soothing  and  agreeable  for  his  much  tried  and  harassed  friend, 
that  when  Richelieu  left,  Voltaire  said  he  felt  like  Ariadne  in 
Naxos  after  the  desertion  of  Theseus. 

While  he  was  at  Lyons  the  enterprising  traveller  also  went  to 
call  on  Cardinal  de  Tencin,  head  of  the  Church  there,  uncle  of 
d’Argental,  and  brother  of  that  famous  Madame  de  Tencin  who 
had  played  Thisbe  to  Voltaire’s  Pyramus  when  Voltaire  was  in 
the  Bastille  in  1726.  The  wary  Lord  Cardinal  stated  to  M.  de 
Voltaire  that  he  could  not  ask  a person  in  such  ill-favour  with 
his  Majesty  of  France  to  dine  with  him.  Voltaire  replied  that 
he  never  dined  out,  and  knew  how  to  take  his  own  part  against 
kings  and  cardinals ; and,  so  saying,  turned  his  back  on  his 
Eminence  and  went  out  of  the  room.  As  he  and  Collini  were 
returning  from  that  brief  visit,  the  visitor  observed  absently  that 
this  country  was  not  made  for  him.  The  officer  in  command  of 
the  troops  in  Lyons  received  him  in  much  the  same  way.  All 
the  authorities  were  cold,  in  fact,  to  propitiate  that  Highest 
Authority  at  the  Court  of  France,  who  was  colder  still.  How- 
ever, their  disapproval  was  not  very  afflicting.  The  town  of 
Lyons  saw  Voltaire  with  bolder  eyes.  It  acted  his  plays  at  the 
theatre  ; and  when  he  appeared  in  his  box  there,  loudly  applauded 
him.  On  November  26  he  formally  took  his  seat  in  the  Lyons 
Academy,  of  which  he  had  long  been  an  honorary  member. 
Then,  too,  Wilhelmina  was  in  Lyons  ; and  Wilhelmina  used  her 
shrewd  influence  with  de  Tencin,  and  at  a second  interview, 
behold ! the  Church  and  Deism  on  quite  friendly  terms. 

As  a whole,  the  Lyons  visit  was  a success  ; or  would  have 
been  but  for  Voltaire’s  ill-health  and  ‘ mortal  anxieties  ’ about 
‘that  cursed  “Pucelle.”  ’ He  was  afraid  that  it  was  in  the  pos- 
session of  Mademoiselle  du  Thil,  once  companion  to  Madame 
du  Chatelet,  who  had  found  it  among  Emilie’s  effects.  The  ill- 
health,  too,  which  took  the  form  of  gouty  rheumatism  this  time, 
was  so  painful  and  annoying  that  many  of  his  friends  had 
strongly  recommended  him  to  try  for  it  the  waters  of  Aix-in- 
Savoy.  In  the  meantime  he  had  been  lent  ‘ a charming  house 


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[1754-55 


halfway.’  On  December  10,  1754,  he,  Madame  Denis,  and 
Oollini  left  Lyons  for  ninety-three  miles  distant  Geneva,  which 
they  reached  on  December  18  and  found  gaily  celebrating  a 
victory  gained  in  1602  over  the  Duke  of  Savoy.  The  gates  of 
the  city  were  shut  for  the  night  when  they  arrived.  But  the 
great  M.  de  Voltaire  was  expected  : and  they  were  flung  open  for 
him.  He  supped  that  night  in  Geneva  with  a man  who  was  to 
be  till  his  death  one  of  the  best  and  wisest  friends  he  ever  had, 
the  famous  Dr.  Tronchin. 

No  account  of  Voltaire’s  life  in  Switzerland  could  be  com- 
plete without  mention  of  that  honourable  and  celebrated  family, 
who  in  the  eighteenth  century  nobly  filled  many  important  posts 
in  the  Swiss  republic  and  whose  descendants  are  well  known  in 
it  to  the  present  day.  One  Tronchin,  the  Swiss  jurisconsult,  is 
celebrated  as  having  provoked,  by  certain  ‘ Letters  from  the 
Country,’  the  famous  ‘Letters  from  the  Mountain’  of  Jean 
Jacques  Rousseau.  Another,  the  Councillor  Francis  Tronchin, 
the  most  delightful  and  hospitable  of  men,  was  at  once  the  con- 
stant correspondent,  the  legal  adviser — in  brief,  the  factotum  of 
Voltaire. 

But  the  most  famous  of  the  family,  as  well  as  the  one  most 
intimately  associated  with  Voltaire,  was  Theodore  Tronchin,  the 
doctor.  Handsome  face,  noble  mind,  fearless  spirit,  with  the 
stern  uprightness  of  the  Puritan,  and  an  infinite  benevolence  and 
compassion  all  his  own — if  greatness  meant  only  goodness, 
friend  Theodore  was  a greater  man  than  his  great  patient, 
Voltaire. 

Yet,  though  no  spark  of  the  Voltairian  genius  was  in  him,  he 
was  the  most  enlightened  doctor  of  his  age.  It  is  not  only  as 
the  intimate  of  that  6 old  baby  ’ as  he  called  him,  the  Patriarch  of 
Ferney,  that  Tronchin  may  well  interest  the  present  day  : but  as 
the  earliest  discoverer — after  eighteen  centuries  of  stuffiness — of 
the  value  of  fresh  air  ; as  the  first  of  his  class  who  preached  the 
Gospel  of  Nature  ; recommended  temperance,  exercise,  cleanli- 
ness in  lieu  of  the  drugs  of  the  Pharmacopoeia ; and,  after  years 
of  labour,  taught  the  woman  of  his  age  to  be  very  nearly  as  good 
a mother  to  her  children  as  is  the  lioness  to  her  cubs.  Tronchin 
deserves  to  be  famous. 

It  was  he  who  discountenanced  the  idea  of  Voltaire  trying 


Mt.  60—61]  THE  ARRIVAL  IN  SWITZERLAND 


285 


the  waters  of  Aix.  Tronchin’s  diagnosis  always  went  through 
the  body  to  the  soul.  No  doubt  he  saw  that  this  vif,  irritable, 
nervous  patient — torn  to  pieces  with  the  quarrels  and  the  excite- 
ment of  the  last  five  years — wanted,  not  the  waters  of  Aix,  but  of 
Lethe  : peace,  quiet,  monotony,  and  a home. 

After  four  days’  stay  in  Geneva,  Voltaire  and  suite  reached 
the  ‘ charming  house  ’ which  had  been  lent  him,  and  which  was 
ten  miles  from  Geneva  and  called  the  Chateau  of  Prangins.  It 
stood  on  very  high  ground,  overlooking  the  lake  from  thirteen 
immense  windows.  There  was  too  much  house  and  too  little 
garden.  The  house  was  only  half  furnished,  and  beaten  by  every 
wind  that  blew.  And  it  was  mid-winter  in  Switzerland.  Was 
it  really  so  charming  ? Madame  Denis  was  volubly  discontented. 
Italian  Collini,  who  felt  he  had  been  cheated  out  of  going  to 
Paris,  was  extremely  cross  and  cold.  His  master  and  mistress 
were  always  calling  him  to  make  up  the  fires,  shut  the 
windows,  and  bring  them  their  furs.  The  draughts  were  really 
abominable.  And  what  was  one  to  do  here  ? ‘ Be  bored ; in 

a worse  temper  than  usual ; and  write  a great  deal  of  history ; be 
as  bad  a philosopher  as  in  the  town  ; and  have  not  the  slightest 
idea  what  is  to  become  of  us.’  This  was  discontented  Collini’s 
account  of  Prangins.  He  was  pluming  his  wings  for  flight,  and 
not  at  all  in  the  mood  to  make  the  best  of  things. 

It  was  Voltaire  who  did  that.  Between  the  grumbling  niece 
and  secretary,  acutely  sensitive  himself  to  physical  discomfort,  not 
a little  worried  by  the  memory  of  that  ‘abortion  of  a Universal 
History,’  compelled  to  wait  for  a package  of  absolutely  necessary 
books  that  ought  to  have  come  from  Paris  and  had  not,  so  ill 
that  by  January  8,  1755,  he  could  not  even  hold  a pen,  he  was 
still,  in  spite  of  angry  Collini’s  insinuations,  the  same  true 
philosopher  who  had  astronomised  with  Madame  du  Chatelet 
sitting  by  the  roadside  on  a January  evening  on  the  cushions  of 
their  broken-down  carriage.  He  was  still  busy  and  cheerful. 
‘ They  have  need  of  courage,’  he  wrote  of  his  companions,  very 
justly.  As  for  himself,  he  worked  and  forgot  the  cold.  It  was  in 
these  early  days  of  his  life  in  Switzerland  that  he  arranged 
with  the  Brothers  Cramer,  the  famous  publishers  of  Geneva,  to 
bring  out  the  first  complete  edition  of  his  writings.  Then  he 
heard  from  d’Argental  that  the  public  of  Paris  resented  his 


286 


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[1755 


exile.  What  warmth  and  comfort  in  that ! ‘ Nanine  ’ was 

played  there  with  success ; and  a play  of  Crebillon’s  was  a 
failure.  That  would  have  made  one  glow  with  satisfaction  in  any 
climate.  And  if  Prangins  was  cold,  two  at  least  of  the  influential 
persons  in  the  neighbourhood  had  written  warmly  to  assure  the 
famous  newcomer  of  their  good  offices. 

And  better  than  all,  better  a thousand  times,  through  this 
chill,  discontented  January,  Voltaire  was  eagerly  looking  for  a 
house  and  property  of  his  own,  in  this  free  little  Switzerland, 
where  he  might  settle  down  at  last  and  be  in  peace.  On 
January  81,  1755,  he  was  in  active  negotiation  about  two  houses. 
On  February  1 there  appeared  in  the  Registers  of  the  Council 
of  State  of  Geneva  a special  permission  to  M.  de  Voltaire — who 
alleged  the  state  of  his  health  and  the  necessity  for  living  near 
his  doctor,  Tronchin,  as  a reason  for  wishing  to  settle  in  Switzer- 
land— to  inhabit  the  territory  of  the  republic  under  the  good 
pleasure  of  the  Seigneury. 

On  February  8 or  9 the  Councillor  Tronchin  bought  a pro- 
perty quite  close  to  Geneva,  called  Saint- Jean,  which  he  let  on 
a life  lease  to  Voltaire,  and  which,  in  a characteristic  enthusiasm 
and  before  he  had  had  any  practical  experience  of  it,  Voltaire  re- 
christened ‘ Les  Delices.’  Thus  he  was  enabled  to  evade  the  law 
of  the  republic,  and,  Papist  though  he  nominally  was,  to  live  and 
hold  property  under  the  Genevan  republic. 

A few  days  later  he  acquired  a second  house,  called  Monrion, 
on  the  way  from  Lausanne  to  Ouchy. 

He  was  now  sixty-one  years  old.  Strong  in  his  heart  all  his 
life  had  been  his  love  of  a home.  For  a while  Cirey  had  seemed 
like  one.  But  it  had  never  belonged  to  him.  It  was,  too,  in 
France  ; and  there  had  been  often  the  painful  necessity  of  leaving 
it  as  quickly  as  possible,  and  without  any  surety  of  being  allowed 
to  come  back  again.  The  man's  whole  life  had  been  a buffeting 
from  pillar  to  post. 

But  the  fretted  youth  in  Paris,  the  restless  middle  age  at 
Luneville,  Brussels,  Cirey,  and  the  angry  hurry  of  Prussia  were 
over  for  ever. 

When  he  settled  in  Switzerland  Voltaire  took  a new  lease  of 
his  life.  He  entered  upon  its  last,  greatest,  noblest,  and  calmest 
epoch. 


Mt.  61J 


287 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

THE  DELICES, 

AND  THE  ‘ POEM  ON  THE  DISASTER  OF  LISBON  ’ 

In  1755  the  little  republic  of  Geneva  contained  twenty  thousand 
of  some  of  the  most  simple,  honest,  frugal,  and  industrious 
persons  in  the  world.  Calvin  had  been  dead  two  centuries.  But 
his  influence  yet  lived  in  laws  which  regulated  not  only  the 
worship  but  the  food  and  the  drink  of  his  followers  ; which  bade 
them  rise  at  five  in  summer  and  at  six  in  winter,  under  penalty 
of  a fine  ; allowed  but  two  dishes  at  their  tables  ; and  made  more 
than  one  fire  in  a house  appear  unjustifiable  extravagance.  In 
many  respects  the  Genevan  Calvinists  of  the  time  of  Voltaire 
were  not  unlike  a certain  section  of  Scottish  society.  Austere 
in  morals,  and  shrewd  in  mind,  narrow,  laborious,  economical, 
equally  exempt  from  degrading  poverty  and  degrading  luxury, 
content  with  stern  pleasures,  and  a brief  and  rigid  creed — the 
Calvinist  was  but  a severer  Presbyterian  after  all.  By  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  indeed,  one  party  of  the  Genevans 
had  been  influenced  not  a little,  on  the  side  of  their  intellect,  by 
the  new  science,  the  new  literature,  the  new  philosophy,  which 
were  remoulding  Europe  ; and  beneath  the  Calvinistic  gloom 
still  felt  the  gay  heart-beats  of  the  Frenchman.  But  the  other 
and  larger  party  were  Puritan  to  the  marrow — who  believed,  with 
all  the  morbid  intensity  of  their  founder,  that  enjoyment  was 
sinful,  musical  instruments  had  been  invented  by  the  devil,  and 
play-acting  was  the  abomination  of  desolation. 

It  was  among  such  a people  that  this  cynic  Voltaire,  whose 
motto  was  ‘ Eire  et  fais  rire,’  whose  darling  amusement  was  the 
drama,  and  whose  incorrigible  indulgence  was  the  i Pucelle,’  had 
elected  to  live. 

On  the  very  day,  February  9,  1755,  when  he  completed  his 


288 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1755 


negotiations  for  buying  the  lease  of  Delices,  a certain  Pastor 
Vernet  wrote  to  him,  begging  him  to  respect  religion,  and  saying 
that  the  serious  persons  of  the  neighbourhood  were  not  without 
their  apprehensions  on  that  count.  But  when  it  came  to  writing, 
Voltaire  W’as  more  than  a match  for  any  pastor  who  ever  lived. 
He  responded  by  a letter  brilliantly  ambiguous  ; to  which  Vernet 
could  take  no  exception,  but  in  which  he  must  have  found  much 
food  for  thought. 

Les  Delices  stood  on  the  top  of  a hill  on  the  Lyons  road  and 
quite  near  to  the  town  of  Geneva.  It  was  therefore  in  that 
republic,  while  it  was  ten  minutes’  walk  from  the  Sardinian  pro- 
vince of  Savoy,  half  an  hour’s  ride  into  France,  and  an  hour’s 
ride  into  Vaud.  Altogether,  a most  prudent  situation  for  a 
Voltaire.  Lake  Leman  lapped  to  the  foot  of  its  terraces.  It  was 
surrounded  by  gardens,  whose  beauty  was  only  marred  by  high 
walls  which  shut  out  the  lovely  surrounding  country.  His  sig- 
nature on  the  lease  was  still  wet  when  this  enthusiastic  Voltaire 
began  pulling  down  those  walls  that  he  might  look  uninter- 
ruptedly upon  one  of  the  most  beautiful  views  in  Switzerland — 
across  the  city  of  Geneva,  the  junction  of  the  rivers  Arne  and 
Rhone,  to  the  Jura  and  the  Alps.  He  called  the  place  the 
Delices,  he  said,  because  ‘ there  is  nothing  more  delightful  than 
to  be  free  and  independent.’  Certainly,  the  Delights  were  his 
torments  in  some  respects.  He  complained  that  the  architect 
of  Prangins  had  forgotten  to  make  a garden,  and  the  archi- 
tect of  Delices  had  forgotten  to  make  a house.  Its  builder  had 
built  for  himself ; and  the  guest-rooms  were  inadequate  and 
uncomfortable.  But  such  defects  could  be  remedied.  The 
last  occupant  of  Delices  was  the  son  of  that  Duchess  of  Saxe- 
Gotha  who  had  inspired  the  ‘ Annals.’  That  seemed  like  a good 
omen. 

Monrion,  the  second  purchase,  was  on  the  way  from  Lausanne 
to  Ouchy — at  the  other  end  of  the  lake  from  Delices.  ‘Les 
Delices  will  be  for  the  summer,  Monrion  for  the  winter,  and  you 
for  all  seasons,’  Voltaire  wrote  to  Lawyer  de  Brenles,  the  very 
day  he  acquired  Delices.  ‘ I wanted  only  one  tomb.  I shall  have 
two.’  Monrion  was  comfortable  and  ‘ sheltered  from  the  cruel 
north  wind  ’ — ‘ my  little  cabin,’  ‘ my  winter  palace  ’ — a ‘ clean, 
simple  house  ’ such  as  its  master  loved.  After  his  time  it  was 


JE t.  61] 


THE  DELICES 


289 


inhabited  by  Tissot — a celebrated  doctor,  only  second  in  reputa- 
tion to  Tronchin. 

It  is  pleasant  to  see  the  keen  youthful  enjoyment  and  ardour 
with  which  Voltaire  turned  to  the  improvement  of  his  new 
homes.  The  first  letter  he  wrote  from  Delices  is  dated  March  5, 
1755,  but,  as  has  been  noted,  even  before  that  date  he  was  enthu- 
siastically pulling  down  walls  in  the  garden  and  planning  new 
rooms  for  the  house.  By  March  24,  he  and  Madame  Denis  were 
actually  in  the  midst  of  building  the  6 accommodation  for  our 
friends  and  our  chickens — planting  oranges  and  onions,  tulips 
and  carrots.  One  must  found  Carthage.’  The  new  fascination— 
the  safest  and  best  he  had  ever  known — the  fascination  of  home 
and  garden,  of  country  life,  of  pride  in  simple  things — took  pos- 
session of  the  most  susceptible  of  men.  He  said  with  his  cynic 
smile  that  he  ‘ was  born  faun  and  sylvan.’  He  was  at  least 
strangely  free  from  love  of  the  pavement  for  a man  who  had 
spent  on  it  all  the  most  pliable  years  of  his  life.  He  wrote  in 
this  March  that  his  whole  conversation  was  of  ‘ masons,  car- 
penters, and  gardeners.’  Even  Madame  Denis,  whose  ‘ natural 
aversion  to  a country  life  ’ her  poor  uncle  was  to  have  bitter  cause 
to  lament,  liked  the  hurry  and  bustle  of  moving,  and  was  for 
a while  content. 

There  was  much  to  be  done,  too,  within  doors.  For  himself, 
Voltaire’s  own  tastes  were  always  quite  frugal  and  simple.  He 
wanted  neither  fine  furniture  nor  many  servants.  And  as  for 
rich  eating  and  drink,  from  those,  if  he  had  ever  desired  them — 
which  he  had  not — his  health  would  have  precluded  him.  His 
sternly  frugal  fare  and  love  of  simplicity  about  him  should  have 
pleased  his  Calvinistic  neighbours.  But  he  was  a friend  before 
all  things.  And  Delices  and  Monrion  were  to  be  open  to  all  his 
friends — who  must  be  received  with  every  hospitality  and  with 
every  generous  comfort  of  which  their  host  could  think.  For 
them  he  would  live  like  a rich  man.  For  them  he  began  spending 
that  comfortable  fortune  he  had  acquired  with  so  much  sagacity, 
and  very  often  with  so  much  self-denial.  He  bought  half  a dozen 
horses  and  four  carriages.  He  kept  a couple  of  lackeys,  a valet 
called  Boisse,  a French  cook,  and  a cook’s  boy  ; maidservants, 
coachmen,  a postillion,  and  gardeners  ; beside  Collini,  whose 
duties  were  only  less  universal  than  Longchamp’s  had  been. 

u 


290 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1755 


That  French  cook  soon  had  to  provide  a great  many  dinners  for 
a great  many  diners ; and  generous  suppers  after  evening  thea- 
tricals. The  carriages  had  to  be  sent  to  bring  the  economical, 
quiet-going  neighbours  to  and  from  the  dinner  parties.  The 
carriage  Voltaire  kept  for  his  own  use  was  of  antique  build,  with 
a blue  ground  speckled  with  gold  stars ; but  it  was  his  fancy 
always  to  drive  this  remarkable  equipage  into  Geneva  with  four 
horses  in  it — to  the  great  excitement  and  astonishment  of  the 
grave  little  republic.  On  one  occasion  the  people  so  crowded 
round  him  to  see  him  alight  from  this  extraordinary  conveyance, 
that  he  called  out,  ‘ What  do  you  want  to  see,  boobies  ? A skele- 
ton? Well,  here  is  one,’  and  he  threw  off  his  cloak.  The 
establishment  of  Delices  was  further  completed  by  a tame  bear 
and  a monkey.  The  monkey,  who  bit  the  hand  that  caressed 
him,  was  called  Luc.  So  in  his  letters  of  the  time  Voltaire  soon 
began  to  allude  to  a certain  royal  friend  as  Luc  too. 

Voltaire  had  been  established  at  Delices  about  a month,  when 
in  April  his  first  visitor,  Lekain  the  actor,  came  to  stay  with 
him.  Lekain,  who  in  1750  had  been  nobody  at  all  but  a clever 
young  dependent  on  the  bounty  of  the  famous  M.  de  Voltaire,  was 
himself  famous  now,  as  one  of  the  best  tragedians  in  Paris.  Of 
course  the  amateur  dramatic  talent  of  Delices  took  advantage  of 
the  professional  genius  of  Lekain.  ‘ Zaire  ’ was  rehearsed  ; and 
then  read  aloud  in  one  of  the  large  rooms  of  the  house.  Denis 
and  Lekain  were  in  the  principal  parts.  Voltaire  took  his 
favourite  role  of  Lusignan,  and  declared  gaily  that  no  company 
in  Europe  had  a better  old  fool  in  it  than  himself.  The  frigid 
Calvinists  and  the  Tronchins,  who  formed  the  audience,  were  in 
tears.  Lekain  had  more  sentiment  than  voice,  said  Voltaire ; 
and  was  so  moved  sometimes  as  to  be  inaudible.  But  then  he 
moved  his  audience  too.  That  was  the  great  thing.  He  and  his 
amateurs  also  read  some  part  of  the  new  play,  * The  Orphan  of 
China  ’ ; and  when  Lekain  left  he  carried  away  most  of  it  in  his 
box  with  the  view  of  producing  it  in  Paris. 

But  even  at  Delices  the  man  who  had  written  the  ‘ Pucelle  ’ 
could  not  long  expect  to  find  only  the  pleasures  of  play-acting 
and  the  agreeable  troubles  of  an  estate.  Since  he  began  it,  in 
1730,  the  thing  had  been  copied,  and  miscopied,  read,  re-read, 
quoted,  and  travestied  a thousand  times.  It  had  been  imitated 


LEKAIN. 


From  an  Engraving  after  a Fainting  by  S.  B.  Le  Noir. 


i£T.  61] 


THE  DELICES 


291 


by  King  Frederick  in  the  ‘ Palladium  ’ ; and  read  aloud  to  the 
Prussian  princesses  and  the  Duchess  of  Saxe-Gotha.  It  had 
been  transcribed  for  Prince  Henry,  and  by  Longchamp.  It  was 
everybody’s  secret ; but  still  it  was  a secret.  There  was  one 
indecorum  it  had  not  yet  committed — that  of  print. 

And  in  this  January  of  1755  had  come  that  unpleasant  news 
that  a manuscript  was  in  the  possession  of  Mademoiselle  du 
Thil ; and  then,  like  a clap  of  thunder,  the  announcement  that 
the  thing  ‘ was  printed  and  being  sold  for  a louis  in  Paris.’ 

The  publication  of  such  a work  would  have  been  disastrous 
for  Voltaire  at  any  moment ; but  it  was  doubly  disastrous  now. 
Here  he  was  just  settling  down  upon  his  estate  as  a sober, 
respectable  country  gentleman,  very  much  minded  to  stand  well 
with  his  straight-laced  neighbours,  very  fond  of  his  new  home, 
not  at  all  inclined  to  leave  it,  and  having  nowhere  to  go  if  he  did 
leave  it — yet  holding  his  land  and  his  right  to  live  on  it  only  at 
the  ‘ good  pleasure  ’ of  a very  strict  Seigneury.  To  make  matters 
worse,  the  printed  1 Pucelle  * was  (of  course)  full  of  errors  ; and 
while  it  was  much  less  witty  than  the  original,  was  not  at  all  less 
indecent.  At  first  there  seemed  to  be  nothing  to  be  done  but  to 
follow  the  old,  old  plan.  The  thing  is  not  mine  at  all ! Here, 
for  instance,  is  a passage  abusing  Richelieu — and  Richelieu  is 
my  friend  ! And  then,  to  make  assurance  doubly  sure,  Voltaire 
tried  another  very  artful  and  most  characteristic  ruse . He 
employed  hundreds  of  copyists  in  Paris  to  copy  it  as  incorrectly 
as  possible.  Then  all  his  friends,  as  well  as  himself,  denied 
loudly  and  vehemently  that  he  was  the  author  thereof.  A 
Voltaire  write  such  bad  verse — so  fade , so  plat,  so  prosy ! Impos- 
sible ! At  the  same  time,  Voltaire  sent  copies  of  such  a ‘ Pucelle  ’ 
— or  such  parts  of  the  1 Pucelle  ’ — as  he  wished  to  avow,  to  all 
his  acquaintance  and  all  persons  in  authority.  It  was  a very 
good  idea.  It  cost  a great  deal  of  money,  and  a great  deal  of 
trouble ; and  might  have  been  of  some  use  if  M.  de  Voltaire’s 
character  and  writings  had  not  been  known  and  feared  these 
forty  years. 

On  July  26,  Grasset,  a publisher  of  Lausanne,  appeared  at 
the  Delices  and  kindly  offered  to  sell  M.  de  Voltaire  the  incorrect 
copy  of  his  own  1 Pucelle  ’ for  fifty  louis.  Voltaire  had  already 
written  to  Grasset  to  tell  him  in  no  mild  terms  that  those  ‘ rags 

u 2 


292 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1755 


of  manuscript 9 were  not  his  ‘ Pucelle  ’ at  all,  but  the  work  of 
some  person  who  had  neither  ‘ poetic  art,  good  sense,  nor  good 
morals ; ’ and  that  of  such  a thing  Grasset  would  not  sell  a 
hundred  copies.  His  rage,  therefore,  may  be  imagined.  He 
denounced  Grasset  to  the  Genevan  authorities  ; and  had  the 
satisfaction  of  seeing  that  misguided  person  made  fast  in  prison 
— for  a time.  On  July  27  factotum  Collini  was  sent  up  to  Paris 
to  see  if  he  could  not  better  matters  there.  But  Paris  burnt  the 
‘ Pucelle.’  The  Pope  prohibited  it ; and  it  sold  lustily.  It  is  not 
a little  curious  that  Voltaire  himself  never  in  all  his  life  suffered 
anything  worse  from  it  than  frights  : though  of  those  he  had 
enough  and  to  spare.  In  1757  a Parisian  printer  was  sentenced 
to  nine  years  at  the  galleys  for  printing  an  edition.  Geneva — 
pretending  to  believe,  and  trying  to  believe,  that  M.  de  Voltaire 
was  not  its  author — burnt  the  accursed  thing  as  Paris  had  done  ; 
knowing  that  M.  de  Voltaire  could  only  be  glad  to  seethe  destruc- 
tion of  such  a wicked  travesty  of  his  respectable  poem.  With 
what  a wry  smile  he  must  have  watched  that  bonfire ! 

The  republic,  however,  for  the  moment,  ostensibly  gave  him 
the  benefit  of  the  doubt.  And  then  in  this  very  July,  just  when 
he  ought  to  have  been  most  cautious  and  circumspect,  if  this 
imprudent,  mischievous  person  does  not  begin  making  a stage  of 
inverted  wine-barrels,  painting  scenery,  getting  together  theatrical 
costumes,  flashing  sham  lightning  in  a dustpan,  preparing  sham 
thunder  by  means  of  the  rims  of  two  cartwheels — and,  worse 
than  all,  a thousand  times  worse — recruiting  a theatrical  company 
from  among  the  young  people  of  Geneva ! The  young  people 
were  only  too  willing.  The  Council  of  State  had  swallowed — in 
disapproving  silence — that  reading  of  4 Zaire  ’ when  Lekain  had 
reduced  ‘ Tronchins  and  syndics  ’ to  tears.  But  this  was  a little 
too  much.  So  on  July  31  the  Council  met,  and,  as  the  result  of 
a solemn  confabulation,  reminded  M.  de  Voltaire  that  the  drama, 
played  publicly  or  privately,  was  contrary  to  their  regulations, 
and  that  no  Calvinists  were  allowed  to  take  part  in,  or  to  witness, 
the  same.  Voltaire  replied  with  a suspicious  meekness  that  his 
only  desire  was  to  obey  the  4 wise  laws  ’ of  the  government.  He 
further  wrote  to  Councillor  Tronchin  in  terms  quite  abject.  1 No 
man  who  owes  to  your  honourable  body  the  privilege  of  living  in 
this  air  ought  to  displease  anyone  who  breathes  it.* 


Mt.  61] 


THE  HELICES 


293 


In  brief,  there  was  a different  and  quite  as  good  an  air  in 
Lausanne,  where  the  4 wise  laws  ’ of  Geneva  had  no  sway. 
Lausanne  loved  play-acting ; and  M.  de  Voltaire  had  a house  at 
Monrion. 

In  Paris,  too,  on  August  20,  4 The  Orphan  of  China  ’ was  per- 
formed with  brilliant  success.  Here  was  excellent  consolation 
for  the  solemn  resolutions  of  Genevan  Councils.  They  might 
take  offence  at  4 Zaire/  but  Paris  applauded  4 my  Chinese 
baboons  ’ to  the  echo.  Poor  Marie  Leczinska,  indeed,  who  not 
unnaturally  saw  evil  in  everything  this  sceptic,  this  Pompadour’s 
favourite,  did,  saw  it  here  too.  But  even  her  objections,  that  the 
piece  contained  lines  hostile  to  religion  and  to  the  King,  were  too 
obviously  unjust  to  harm  it.  The  censor  had  passed  it.  Its  first 
performance  declared  it  Voltaire’s  greatest  success  since  4Merope.’ 
If  Lekain  did  fall  into  his  old  fault  and  speak  dreadfully  indis- 
tinctly, Mademoiselle  Clarion  made  the  most  charming  of 
heroines,  and  the  play  was  4 all  full  of  love  ’ — tender,  graceful, 
picturesque.  Ifc  was  played  twelve  or  thirteen  times  in  Paris  ; 
and  when  it  was  moved  to  Fontainebleau  the  Court  delighted  in 
it  as  much  as  the  capital  had  done.  In  the  annals  of  the  French 
stage  it  is  still  remembered  as  the  first  play  in  which  the  actresses 
consented  to  forego  their  paniers. 

Collini  was  present  on  the  opening  night.  Even  his  grumbling 
pen  allows  that  his  master  had  made  a very  palpable  hit.  The 
pleasure-loving  secretary  had  spent  six  weeks  in  Paris,  almost 
entirely  engaged  in  enjoying  himself,  before  Voltaire  recalled  him 
in  the  friendliest  of  terms. 

On  August  30,  1755,  Voltaire  wrote  from  Delices  one  of  his 
most  famous  letters  ; perhaps  one  of  the  most  famous  letters  in 
the  world.  It  was  to  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  and  thanked  him 
for  the  ‘Discourse  on  the  Origin  of  Inequality  among  Men,’ 
which  Rousseau  had  written  as  a prize  essay  at  the  Academy  of 
Dijon,  and  now  sent  for  the  approval  of  the  great  master.  The 
4 Discourse  ’ was  nothing  but  an  elaboration  of  Rousseau’s 
famous  theory — the  advantage  of  savage  over  civilised  life.  Years 
before,  at  the  French  Court  in  1745,  Voltaire  and  Rousseau  had 
had  dealings  with  each  other.  They  now  renewed  that  acquaint- 
ance. Voltaire’s  letter  began,  4 1 have  received,  Sir,  your  new 
book  against  the  human  race.  ...  No  one  has  ever  employed  so 


294 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1755 


much  wit  in  trying  to  make  us  beasts  : one  longs  to  go  on  four 
paws  when  one  reads  your  book,  but,  personally,  it  is  sixty  years 
since  I lost  the  habit,  and  I feel  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  resume 
it/  He  went  on  to  agree  with  Jean  Jacques  that  literature  and 
science  brought  many  troubles  to  their  votaries ; and  instanced 
his  own  case  with  as  quick  a feeling  as  if  all  his  wrongs  were  of 
yesterday.  But,  ‘ literature  nourishes,  rectifies,  and  consoles  the 
soul  . . . one  must  love  it,  in  spite  of  the  way  it  is  abused,  as 
one  must  love  society,  though  the  wicked  corrupt  its  sweetness : 
as  one  must  love  one’s  country,  though  one  suffers  injustice  from 
it ; and  one’s  God,  though  superstition  and  fanaticism  degrade 
His  service.’ 

On  September  10  Rousseau  replied  from  Paris  in  warm  terms 
of  friendship,  and  agreeing  with  the  superior  wisdom  of  his 
master’s  argument.  As  yet,  each  could  see  the  other’s  genius — 
and  reverence  it.  They  could  disagree  and  be  friends. 

The  autumn  at  Delices  was  further  marked  by  the  visit  of 
Patu,  a poet,  who  was  a friend  of  David  Garrick’s  and  wrote  him 
an  ecstatic  account  of  his  boyishly  energetic  host ; and  by  a 
fracas  with  Madame  Denis. 

The  facts  that  that  foolish  person  was  fat,  short,  forty-five 
years  old,  and  squinted,  did  not,  it  has  been  said,  make  her  less 
fond  of  admiration  from  the  opposite  sex,  or  less  prone  to  make 
a fool  of  herself  in  a flirtation  when  opportunity  offered. 

In  the  present  case  Uncle  Voltaire  suspected  her  of  being  a party 
to  a theft  her  old  admirer,  the  Marquis  de  Ximenes,  had  made  of 
some  manuscript  notes  for  Voltaire’s  ‘Campaigns  of  the  King.’ 
Ximenes  had  sold  the  notes  to  a publisher.  Madame  Denis’s 
voluble  denials  would  certainly  prove  nothing.  Voltaire  was 
already  quite  aware  of  what  Madame  d’Epinay  discovered  after 
a very  short  acquaintance  with  her,  that  his  niece  was  constitu- 
tionally a liar. 

And  then,  on  November  24,  came  news  which  staggered 
Voltaire’s  soul ; and  beside  which  all  petty  trouble  seemed 
shameful.  On  November  1,  1755,  Lisbon  was  destroyed  by  an 
earthquake.  It  was  All  Saints’  Day,  and  the  churches  were  full. 
In  six  minutes,  fifteen  thousand  persons  were  dead ; and  fifteen 
thousand  more  were  dying. 

In  these  days,  when  every  morning  has  its  4 crisis  ’ and  every 


AZt.  61] 


THE  1 DISASTER  OF  LISBON  * 


295 


evening  its  ‘ appalling  disaster,'  it  is  difficult  to  realise  the  effect 
of  the  earthquake  at  Lisbon  upon  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
less  news  there  is,  the  more  is  that  news  felt.  In  the  eighteenth 
century,  too,  all  thoughtful  persons  saw  signs  in  the  heavens  and 
the  earth  of  some  great  change  ; and  felt  in  the  social  order 
throes,  which  might  be  the  death  pangs  of  the  old  world,  or  the 
birth  pains  of  a new.  Further,  men  had  begun  to  think  and 
to  reason  for  themselves : to  ask  why  ? from  whence  ? to  what 

end  ? and  to  brush  aside  the  answers  of  the  old  theologies  to 

those  ancient  questions  as  trite,,  unproven,  and  inadequate. 

And  if  this  was  the  temper  of  mind  of  most  thoughtful 
persons,  how  much  more  of  a Voltaire  ! 

The  news  took  nearly  a month  to  reach  him.  For  many 

months  after  he  received  it,  there  is  hardly  one  of  his  letters 

which  does  not  allude  to  it  in  terms  of  a passionate  horror  or  a 
passionate  inquiry.  4 The  best  of  all  possible  worlds  ! ’ 4 If  Pope 
had  been  there  would  he  have  said  “Whatever  is,  is  right”?' 

‘ All  is  well  seems  to  me  absurd,  when  evil  is  on  land  and  sea.' 

4 1 no  longer  dare  to  complain  of  my  ailments  : none  must  dare 
to  think  of  himself  in  a disaster  so  general.’  ‘ Beaumont,  who 
has  escaped,  says  there  is  not  a house  left  in  Lisbon — this  is 
optimism .’  Over  and  over  again  he  reverts  to  the  comfortable 
dogmas  of  Mr.  Pope’s  ‘ Essay  on  Man  ’ — conceived  sitting  safe 
and  easy  in  a Twickenham  villa.  The  stories  of  the  earthquake 
reached  Voltaire  exaggerated.  But  the  bald  truth  was  enough. 
‘Voltaire,'  said  Joubert,  ‘is  sometimes  sad ; he  is  moved  ; but  he 
is  never  serious.'  He  was  serious  once — over  the  Earthquake  of 
Lisbon. 

When  the  horrors  were  still  fresh  in  his  mind,  when  the 
burning  questions  to  which  they  gave  rise  were  still  loudly 
demanding  an  answer,  he  wrote  the  most  passionate  and  touching 
of  all  his  compositions ; one  of  the  most  vigorous  and  inspired 
works  of  any  author  of  the  age. 

The  ‘ Poem  on  the  Disaster  of  Lisbon  ’ is  only  two  hundred 
and  fifty  lines  long ; but  it  contains  a statement  of  almost  all 
those  searching  problems  which  every  thinking  man,  of  whatever 
belief  or  unbelief  he  be,  has  to  face  at  last. 

What  am  I ? Whence  am  I ? Whither  go  I ? What  is  the 
origin  of  evil  ? What  end  is  accomplished  by  the  suffering  and 


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[1756 


sorrow  I see  around  me  ? 1 Why  is  Lisbon  engulfed  while 
Paris,  no  less  wicked,  dances  ? ’ Your  ‘ whatever  is,  is  right  ’ 
may  be  an  easy  doctrine  for  the  happy,  the  rich,  the  healthy  ; 
but  a hard  saying  for  the  poor,  the  sick,  and  the  wretched.  I 
will  none  of  it ! All  Nature  gives  it  the  lie.  The  lips  that  utter 
it  in  prosperity  to-day  will  deny  it  in  misery  to-morrow.  At  the 
end,  the  note  of  consolation  is  struck  in  the  story  of  the  caliph 
who,  dying,  worshipped  God  in  the  prayer  ‘ “ I bring  to  Thee  all 
that  which  Thou  hast  not  in  Thy  immensity — faults,  regrets, 
evils,  ignorance.”  He  might  have  added  also  Hope.’ 

The  philosophy  of  ‘ The  Disaster  of  Lisbon  ’ is  the  philosophy 
of  ‘ In  Memoriam.’ 

Behold,  we  know  not  anything  ; 

I can  but  trust  that  good  shall  fall 
At  last — far  off— at  last,  to  all, 

And  every  winter  change  to  Spring. 

Voltaire’s  poem  has  not  the  tender  beauty  of  the  other  : but  it  is 
not  less  reverent,  and  not  less  religious. 

One  line  of  it,  at  least,  has  found  a place  in  the  immortalities 
of  poetry  : 

Que  suis-je,  ou.  suis-je,  ou  vais-je,  et  d’ou  suis-je  tire  ? 

and  one  phrase,  1 Autres  temps,  autres  mceurs,’  has  become  part 
not  only  of  the  French  language,  but  of  our  own. 

On  January  1 of  the  new  year  1756  Voltaire  sent  an  incom- 
plete copy  of  the  poem  to  the  Duchess  of  Saxe-Gotha.  On  the 
margin  he  wrote  the  word  4 Secret.’  But  on  January  8 he  was 
telling  d’Argental,  ‘My  sermon  on  Lisbon  was  only  for  the 
edification  of  your  flock.  I do  not  throw  the  bread  of  life  to 
dogs.’  So  many  confidences  and  so  many  confidential  friends 
had  their  usual  result.  ‘ The  Disaster  of  Lisbon  ’ appeared  in 
Paris.  With  it  was  also  published  the  ‘ Poem  on  Natural  Law,’ 
begun  in  Prussia  in  1752. 


Mt.  62] 


297 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

4 NATURAL  LAW,’  THE  VISIT  OF  D’ALEMBERT, 

AND  THE  AFFAIR  OF  BYNG 

The  4 Poem  on  Natural  Law  ’ was  an  answer  to  Frederick  the 
Great’s  version  of  the  stupendous  question  of  Pilate — 4 What  is 
truth  ? ’ The  poem  is  in  four  short  parts  and  an  4 easy  and 
limpid  versification.’  In  it,  Voltaire  calls  it  a ‘ seeking  for  the 
law  of  God.’  Condorcet  says  it  is  ‘the  most  splendid  homage 
man  ever  paid  to  Divinity.’  Desnoiresterres  speaks  of  its 
4 incontestable  orthodoxy.’  At  once  profound  and  simple — the 
simple  expression  of  profound  problems — 4 Natural  Law  ’ and 
4 The  Disaster  of  Lisbon  ’ are  almost  the  only  works  of  the  man 
who  has  been  called  the  Prince  of  Scoffers  which  are  completely 
reverent.  They  are  pre-eminently  not  the  writings  of  an  atheist, 
but  of  one  who  gropes  for  a God  he  knows  to  exist,  though  he 
knows  neither  how  nor  where. 

But,  not  the  less,  the  whole  world  and  all  the  Churches  fell 
upon  them  both,  tooth  and  nail.  In  1759  4 Natural  Law  ’ was 
publicly  burnt  by  the  hangman  in  Paris  ; and  immediately  after 
it  appeared,  the  pious  Genevans  begged  J.  J.  Rousseau  to  refute 
the  horrible  heterodoxy  of  4 The  Disaster  of  Lisbon.’  In  July 
1757  Marie  Leczinska,  going  to  mass,  saw  a copy  of  4 Natural 
Law  ’ — which  was  then  commonly  entitled  4 Natural  Religion  ’ — 
on  a bookstall.  On  her  return  from  church  she  took  the 
pamphlet  and  tore  it  across,  and  told  the  astonished  shopwoman 
(4  who  had  supposed,  from  its  title,  the  work  to  be  one  of  edifica- 
tion ’)  that  if  she  sold  such  things  her  licence  should  be  taken 
from  her.  It  is  true,  there  was  a smile  for  Voltaire  and  all  the 
world  in  such  stories.  There  is  a smile  still  in  the  fact  that 
works  far  more  free-thinking  than  4 Natural  Law  ’ and  4 Lisbon  ’ 
are  avowed  now  by  persons  who  continue  to  call  themselves  not 
only  Christians,  but  orthodox  Catholic  churchmen. 


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[1756 


The  January  of  1756  passed  quietly  at  Monrion,  where 
Voltaire  had  arrived  for  the  winter  at  the  end  of  December.  In 
spite  of  his  opinions,  Lausanne  ministers,  always  more  liberal- 
minded  than  the  Genevans,  came  much  to  see  him.  He  liked 
them  not  a little.  ‘ They  are  very  amiable  and  well  read,’  he 
wrote.  ‘ It  must  be  granted  there  is  more  wit  and  knowledge  in 
that  profession  than  in  any  other.  It  is  true  I do  not  listen  to 
their  sermons.’  Other  visitors  were  Lawyer  de  Brenles  and  his 
charming  young  wife.  Voltaire,  disappointed  of  his  play-acting 
in  Geneva,  had  greatly  encouraged  a scheme  for  building  a theatre 
here  in  Lausanne.  But  the  earthquake  had  made  all  men 
thoughtful.  They  mistrusted  their  love  of  the  drama,  and  filled 
the  churches  instead. 

That  wave  of  austerity  swept  also  over  Paris  and  the  Court. 
They  were  in  the  vanguard  of  this  new  mode  of  seriousness,  as 
of  every  other.  To  quite  propitiate  an  angry  heaven  Madame  de 
Pompadour  renounced  her  connection  with  the  King.  His 
private  entrance  to  her  apartments  was  closed  ; and  in  February 
Madame  was  created  Maid  of  Honour  (of  honour !)  to  the  Queen. 

Voltaire  had  dedicated  ‘ Lisbon  7 to  a certain  courtier  friend 
— the  Due  de  la  Valliere — grandson  of  the  hapless  Louise  de  la 
Valliere,  the  mistress  of  Louis  XIV.  In  return,  possibly,  for  the 
compliment  of  that  dedication  the  goodnatured  Duke  consented 
to  be  the  emissary  of  Madame  de  Pompadour,  and  to  write  from 
Court  on  March  1 to  make  a really  most  advantageous  proposal 
to  M.  de  Voltaire.  We  are  all  serious  here  now,  you  know ! Can 
you  not  take  advantage  of  our  seriousness  and  versify  some  of 
the  Psalms  which  I,  the  Duke,  will  at  once  have  printed  at  the 
Louvre  ? The  typical  wit  of  the  eighteenth  century  has  no 
doubt  lost  something  by  the  fact  that  Voltaire’s  two  letters 
in  reply  to  this  proposal  are  missing.  He  did  not  versify  the 
Psalms.  Condorcet  says  that  he  could  not  be  a hypocrite  even 
to  be  a cardinal.  It  seems,  if  not  certainly,  at  least  very  likely, 
to  be  true  that  a red  hat  was  held  out  to  him — in  those  fairest 
of  white  hands — as  an  inducement  to  fall  in  with  the  grave  vogue 
of  the  Court  and  employ  that  matchless  irony  and  that  scathing 
wit  for,  instead  of  against,  the  established  religion. 

It  was  the  chief  duty  of  the  mistresses  of  Louis  XV.  to  keep 
him  from  being  bored ; and  the  Pompadour  knew  her  business 


M t.  62] 


‘ NATURAL  LAW 


299 


to  perfection.  What  reason  was  there  why  Voltaire,  who  could  do 
it  so  well,  should  not  help  her  to  4 egayer  the  King’s  religion  ’ — 
for  a reward  ? That  age  had  had  worse  cardinals  than  he  would 
have  been.  It  still  remembered  Iscariot  Dubois,  traitor,  usurer, 
debauchee  ; and  Mazarin,  that  synonym  for  lies. 

Carlyle,  who,  by  every  instinct  of  his  character  and  every 
racial  trait,  was  necessarily  out  of  sympathy  with  such  a man  as 
Voltaire,  said  of  him,  ‘ that  he  has  never  yet  in  a single  instance 
been  convicted  of  wilfully  perverting  his  belief ; of  uttering  in 
all  his  controversies  one  deliberate  falsehood.’ 

He  was  at  least  too  honest  a man  to  be  a cardinal.  A little 
later  he  did  write  ‘ a free,  too  free  imitation  ’ of  Ecclesiastes  and 
the  Song  of  Solomon.  But  he  cannot  be  charged  with  pandering 
in  these  works  to  the  popular  creed.  His  Notes  on  his  paraphrases 
are  profane  and  coarse ; and  the  paraphrases  themselves  miss  all 
the  dignity  and  beauty  of  the  original.  The  only  merit  they 
have  is  that  they  truthfully  express  the  unpalatable  opinions 
their  writer  held — to  his  loss. 

In  May,  Voltaire  paid  a brief  visit  to  Berne.  On  June  12 
Collini  left  his  service.  He  had  been  with  him  four  years. 
Bright-witted,  quick-tempered,  too  fond  of  pleasure,  and  ‘ loving 
women,’  said  Madame  Denis,  4 like  a fool,’  Collini  had  never  been 
a satisfactory  servant.  It  is  only  a very  noble  character  which 
can  remain  unspoilt  by  spoiling.  Voltaire  certainly  did  not 
understand  the  Napoleonic  principle  of  government — to  be  feared 
before  you  are  loved.  He  had  apologised  to  Collini.  He  had 
forgiven  him  a hundred  times  ; nay  more,  when  it  was  the 
servant  who  was  in  the  wrong  it  was  the  master  who  had  won 
him  back  to  good  temper  by  a thousand  injudicious  indulgences. 
Voltaire  was  lax  enough  on  the  subject  himself,  heaven  knows  ; 
but  now  his  foolish  secretary  must  needs  conduct  himself  in 
a love  affair  in  a manner  which  offended  even  this  easy-going 
master.  Then,  Collini  speaks  ill  of  us  behind  our  backs  ! That 
seemed  one  of  the  worst  failings  in  the  world  to  a man  who 
understood  the  art  of  friendship  so  completely  as  Voltaire.  And 
then — then — the  foolish  secretary — called  away  suddenly  to  get 
a carriage  for  Madame  de  Fontaine,  who  was  just  going  to  arrive 
at  Delices  from  Paris — leaves  open  on  his  desk  a letter  in  which 
he  had  laughed  at  Madame  Denis  ; and  Madame  Denis’s  maid, 


300 


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[1756 


coming  in,  reads  the  letter  and  carries  it  to  her  mistress. 
Voltaire  had  been  infinitely  loyal  to  Madame  du  Chatelet.  He 
was  not  less  so  to  this  chattering  bourgeoise  of  a niece.  He  gave 
the  secretary  his  conge  the  next  day — sadly,  but  firmly  at  last — 
as  a decision  that  admitted  of  no  appeal.  Collini  must  go ! 
Collini  implies  in  his  Memoirs  that  a kind  of  flirtation  between 
himself  and  Madame  Denis  was  one  of  the  causes  of  his  dismissal. 
Madame  Denis  was  certainly  foolish  enough.  It  is  also  on  his 
testimony  that  when  his  master  said  Goodbye  to  him,  he  talked 
with  him  for  more  than  an  hour  and  asked  if  he  had  enough 
money  for  his  journey  to  Paris — 4 and  to  last  some  time.’  As  he 
spoke  Voltaire  went  to  his  desk  and  took  from  it  a rouleau  of 
louis,  saying  ‘ Take  that : one  never  knows  what  may  happen.’ 
And  Collini  adds,  ‘with  tears  in  my  eyes  I left  the  Delices.’ 
Three  years  later,  Voltaire  procured  a post  for  him  at  the  Court 
of  the  Elector  Palatine,  which  Collini  is  believed  to  have  kept 
till  his  death.  Written  long  after  their  parting  are  many  friendly 
letters  from  the  master  to  the  servant. 

Collini  had  his  significance  and  his  uses.  From  his  ‘ Sejour 
aupres  de  Voltaire,’  wherein  he  tries  to  make  Voltaire  appear  as 
faulty  and  himself  as  faultless  as  he  can,  the  master  still  comes 
out  better  than  the  servant.  There  is  no  more  reliable  testimony 
to  character  than  that  wrung  out  of  an  unfriendly  witness.  On 
one  point  at  least  the  ill-tempered  young  Italian  has  cleared  his 
master’s  reputation  for  ever.  ‘ Stinginess  never  had  a place  in 
his  house.  I have  never  known  a man  whose  servants  could 
rob  him  with  greater  ease.  I repeat  it,  he  was  a miser  of  nothing 
but  his  time.’ 

Collini’s  place  was  at  once  filled  by  Wagniere,  a Genevan 
boy,  now  sixteen  years  old,  who  had  been  in  Voltaire’s  service 
since  1754.  As  if  he  had  nothing  else  to  do  in  the  world, 
Voltaire  taught  him  Latin  and  trained  him  in  his  duties  himself. 

Collini’s  departure  for  Paris  seems  to  have  suggested  to  his 
master  that  he  too  would  like  to  pay  a visit  to  the  capital — just 
a very  flying  visit  to  see  about  some  business.  So  he  wrote  off 
to  one  d’Argenson,  to  ask  him  to  get  the  requisite  permission  from 
the  other  d’Argenson,  the  Secretary  of  State.  But  in  spite  of  that 
old  school  friendship,  the  minister  was  not  at  all  too  friendly  just 
now  to  this  presumptuous  exile.  The  permission  was  refused  : 


JEt.  62] 


6 NATUEAL  LAW  9 


301 


and  Voltaire  revenged  himself  by  an  epigram.  He  had  a richer 
revenge,  if  he  had  wanted  it,  in  the  January  of  the  next  year, 
1757,  when  the  Secretary  was  banished  to  please  her  Mightiness 
the  Pompadour.  But  he  did  not  want  it.  The  spiteful  epigram 
relieved  his  feelings  and  his  temper.  And  it  will  be  remembered 
of  an  earlier  Voltaire,  that  from  the  moment  an  enemy  became 
unfortunate,  this  inconsistent  person  could  not  help  regarding 
him  as  a friend. 

In  August,  J.  J.  Rousseau  wrote,  as  the  Genevan  ministers 
had  asked  him,  to  remonstrate  with  Voltaire  on  that  unorthodox 
‘ Disaster  of  Lisbon/  Jean  Jacques  permitted  himself  to  admire 
the  grace  and  beauty  of  M.  de  Voltaire’s  poem,  while  continuing 
to  find  the  optimism  of  Mr.  Pope  much  more  consolatory,  and 
deducing  from  the  earthquake  a splendid  argument  for  his 
darling  theory  of  the  advantages  of  savage  over  civilised  life. 
Do  you  not  see,  my  dear  M.  de  Voltaire,  that  if  people  did  not 
build  themselves  houses  seven  stories  high  and  huddle  together  in 
great  towns,  earthquakes  really  would  not  be  nearly  so  disastrous  ? 

The  letter  was  scarcely  one  which  called  for  a serious  reply. 
But  it  was  instinct  with  all  the  glow  and  passion  of  that  match- 
less style  which  made  men  forget  to  examine  the  common-sense 
of  the  ideas  it  clothed ; and  it  fitted  in  admirably  with  the 
fashionable  optimism  which  was  naturally  popular  with  the  well- 
to-do  and  the  powerful.  The  world  did  take  it  gravely.  And 
in  September  M.  de  Voltaire  sent  a reply  of  airy  badinage. 

‘ Madame  de  Fontaine  has  been  in  danger  of  her  life,  and  I 
have  been  ill  too  ; so  I am  waiting  till  I am  better  and  my  niece 
cured,  to  dare  to  think  as  you  do.’ 

The  note  was  a little  trifling,  certainly  ; but  Rousseau  wrote 
to  Tronchin  that  he  was  charmed  with  it.  As  for  Voltaire,  the 
very  idea  of  that  further  scathing  rollicking  answer  that  was  to 
come  had  not  yet  even  occurred  to  him.  He  had  as  little  time 
as  desire  to  quarrel  with  anybody  at  the  present  moment.  Besides 
all  his  new  duties  as  a landed  proprietor,  a tragedy,  history, 
verses,  correspondence,  he  was  engrossed  with  d’Alembert  as  a 
visitor  and  the  ‘ Encyclopaedia  ’ as  a hobby. 

The  story  of  the  foundling  who,  thirty-nine  years  earlier,  had 
been  discovered  on  the  steps  of  a Parisian  church,  is  hardly  less 
familiar  to  our  own  century  than  it  was  to  the  eighteenth. 


302 


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[1756 


Brought  up  by  a compassionate  poor  woman,  a glazier’s  wife,  it 
was  not  until  he  had  become  the  great  d’Alembert,  the  first 
geometrician  and  philosopher  of  the  day,  that  the  false  mother 
who  had  borne  and  abandoned  him — Madame  de  Tencin,  the  old 
acquaintance  of  Voltaire — would  fain  have  avowed  a child  so 
creditable.  But  that  child  had  not  a characteristic  in  common 
with  her.  He  denied  her.  He  had  no  mother  but  the  glazier’s 
wife.  In  her  home  he  grew  up  to  be  one  of  the  wisest  and 
gentlest  of  great  men.  In  her  home  he  learnt  the  blessings  of 
peace  and  privacy,  of  work  and  obscurity.  6 Simple,  sober,  and 
proud,’  too  well  acquainted  with  Poverty  to  be  afraid  of  her,  he 
always  shunned  a society  which  could  give  him  nothing  and 
might  rob  him  of  the  time  to  work  out  the  work  of  his  life. 
Above  that  glazier’s  shop,  after  long  throes  and  travail  of  delight- 
ful pain,  he  brought  forth  in  1750  the  first-born  son  of  his  genius, 
the  Preliminary  Discourse  of  the  great  1 Encyclopaedia.’  In  1756 
he  became  a member  of  the  French  Academy.  In  1772  he  was 
made  its  perpetual  secretary.  His  long  passion  for  that  most 
ardent  and  unhappy  woman,  Mademoiselle  de  Lespinasse,  was 
for  eleven  years  of  his  later  life  at  once  its  consolation  and  its 
despair.  As  a writer  his  style  has  all  the  clumsiness  of  the 
savant  who  has  so  much  to  say  that  he  has  no  time  to  take  care 
how  he  says  it,  and  all  the  coldness  of  the  mathematician.  But 
it  was  only  his  writing  that  was  cold. 

For  all  his  ‘ stately  irony,’  for  all  his  recluse  student  ways 
and  frugal  life,  d’Alembert  inspired  his  century  not  so  much  with 
admiration  as  with  love.  Once,  when  Voltaire  was  asked  to 
write  something  in  an  album,  he  saw  in  it  the  name  of  d’Alembert. 
Beneath,  he  wrote  his  own — Hie  fuit  Dalemberti  amicus . 

D’Alembert  arrived  at  Delices  some  time  about  August  10, 
1756.  He  stayed  five  weeks.  It  must  have  been  a delightful 
visit.  Voltaire  had  that  rare  combination  of  qualities  as  a host — 
he  knew  both  how  to  amuse  his  guest  and  how  to  leave  him  to 
amuse  himself.  It  was  during  this  stay  that  at  a dinner  party 
at  Delices,  at  which  Dr.  Tronchin  and  others  were  present,  the 
company  began  telling  robber  stories.  Each  anecdote  was  more 
thrilling  than  the  last.  Then  Voltaire  looked  up — ‘ Once, 
Gentlemen,  there  was  a Farmer- General  . . .’  and  he  relapsed 
into  silence,  with  the  honours  of  the  evening.  That  ancient 


JKt.  62] 


THE  VISIT  OF  D’ALEMBERT 


303 


story  still  has  point.  How  much  more  it  must  have  had  when  it 
was  new — in  1756  ! 

The  five  weeks  passed  only  too  quickly.  Summer  was  on 
that  beautiful  country.  Madame  de  Fontaine  was  also  staying 
at  Delices.  She  was  now  a widow  of  about  forty,  rather  tall  and 
good-looking,  and  with  a taste  for  painting — the  subjects  not  too 
decorous,  for  choice.  Madame  was  not  exactly  decorous  herself. 
When  she  arrived  at  Delices  she  had  brought  with  her  the 
Marquis  de  Florian,  her  lover.  Uncle  Voltaire  accepted  that  in- 
timacy with  perfect  nonchalance  and  amiability.  On  the  present 
occasion  Madame  de  Fontaine  was  useful  to  keep  Madame  Denis 
company,  and  so  leave  Voltaire  and  d’Alembert  to  themselves. 

They  had  much  to  do  and  to  say.  From  1746  they  had  been 
correspondents  ; but  the  4 Encyclopaedia  ’ was  a link  which  had 
bound  them  closer  far.  Founded  on  the  4 English  Encyclopaedia  ’ 
of  Chambers,  which  had  been  translated  into  French  about  1748, 
the  4 immense  and  immortal  work  ’ of  Diderot  and  d’Alembert 
wholly  eclipsed  its  prototype.  It  was,  is,  and  will  be,  not  an 
4 Encyclopaedia,’  but  the  4 Encyclopaedia.*  It  includes,  indeed, 
neither  history  nor  biography  : the  vast  discoveries  of  modern 
times  make  men  smile  to-day  at  its  science  ; and  its  hardy 
philosophy  seems  timid  to  our  bolder  age. 

But  it  was  not  the  less  the  Guide  to  the  Revolution,  the  first 
great  public  invitation  to  all  men  to  drink  of  that  knowledge 
which  enfranchises  the  soul.  To  it  Grimm,  Rousseau,  Holbach, 
Marmontel,  and  Condorcet  were  contributors.  There  was  not 
an  enlightened  man  in  France  who  did  not  recognise  it  as  the 
primer  of  a new  language — the  handbook  to  a better  country. 
The  authorities  burnt  it.  Voltaire  loved  it.  It  suggested  to  him 
his  own  Philosophical  or,  as  he  called  it,  4 pocket  Dictionary.’ 
To  the  4 pocket  Dictionary  ’ could  be  relegated  what  was  too  bold 
even  for  the  Encyclopaedia.  It  has  been  seen  that  in  Prussia  he 
wrote  articles  for  it,  and  reams  of  letters  about  it.  It  was  not 
his  own.  He  called  himself  4 the  boy  in  your  great  shop  ’ ; and 
his  contributions  to  it  4 pebbles  to  stick  into  the  corners  of  the 
immortal  edifice  you  are  raising.’  But  he  loved  it  as  if  it  had 
been  his  own,  and  as  he  loved  the  d’Alembert  who  had  created  it. 

That  summer  visit  at  Delices  was  the  cause  of  the  most 
famous  and  fought-over  article  the  4 Encyclopaedia  ’ contains. 


.304 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIKE 


[1756 


Geneva  delighted  in  d’Alembert.  Besides  being  gentle,  modest, 
and  accomplished,  it  also  knew  him  to  be  hostile  to  the  Church 
of  Rome ; and  naturally  concluded  that  hostility  to  Rome  meant 
friendliness  to  Calvin.  The  ministers  flocked  to  Delices,  and 
gave  parties  themselves  for  their  host  and  his  guest.  The  guest 
was  quite  as  charmed  with  them  as  they  were  with  him.  They 
were  so  free  from  superstition,  so  learned,  tolerant,  and  open  to 
reason ! It  was  equally  pleasant  and  surprising  to  find  a 
religion — and  the  ministers  of  a religion — nearly  as  agnostic  as 
the  philosophers  themselves. 

The  next  thing  to  do  when  I get  back  to  Paris  is  to  write  an 
article  on  Geneva  and  compliment  the  children  of  Calvin  on  their 
freedom  of  thought ! There  is  no  doubt  that  d’Alembert  talked 
over  that  proposed  article  with  his  host.  Nor  is  there  any  doubt 
that  Voltaire  knew  perfectly  well  that  such  compliments  would 
set  all  the  Calvinists  in  Geneva  by  the  ears  and  create  a fracas 
which  would  ring  through  Europe  ; nor  that  he  anticipated  that 
fight  with  the  richest  enjoyment,  and  secretly  and  gleefully 
rubbed  his  hands  together  at  the  prospect  of  it. 

And  as  you  are  going  to  write  the  article,  my  dear  d’Alem- 
bert, can  you  not  put  in  just  a few  lines  to  say  that  the  only 
thing  the  Genevans  really  need  to  make  them  entirely  delightful 
is  to  permit  theatrical  representations  among  them — not  for  enjoy- 
ment, of  course,  but  just  to  ‘ improve  their  taste  ’ and  give  them 
‘ tact  and  feeling  ’ ? 

The  amiable  d’Alembert  naturally  agreed  to  oblige  his  host 
on  so  small  a matter. 

In  September  he  packed  up  his  boxes  and  went  back  to  Paris 
with  the  article  on  Geneva  much  in  his  mind  ; and  those  casual 
observations  on  play-acting,  not  to  be  forgotten. 

He  was  missed  at  Delices.  Madame  de  Fontaine  was  ill  there 
in  the  autumn.  Her  uncle’s  cook  was  too  good  for  both  her  and 
her  sister,  who  were  always  calling  in  Tronchin  to  cure  them  of 
‘a  little  indigestion.’  And  of  course  Voltaire  (though  certainly 
not  from  the  same  cause)  was  ill  himself.  ‘ We  have  been  on 
the  point,  my  dear  universal  philosopher,’  he  wrote  to  d’Alembert 
on  October  9,  1 of  knowing,  Madame  de  Fontaine  and  I,  what 
becomes  of  the  soul  when  separated  from  its  partner.  We  hope 
to  remain  in  ignorance  some  time  longer.’ 


Mt.  62] 


THE  AFFAIR  OF  BYNG 


305 


On  December  9 Voltaire  received  a visit  from  an  old  friend, 
George  Keith,  Earl  Marischal  of  Scotland. 

He  did  not  come  as  the  emissary  of  Frederick ; or  to  recall, 
though  no  doubt  he  did  recall,  to  Voltaire  those  early  golden  days 
of  the  Prussian  visit  when  they  had  sat  together  at  the  most 
famous  supper-table  in  the  world.  He  introduced  many  of  his 
countrymen  to  the  ‘ old  owl  of  Delices.’  But  that  was  not  the 
reason  either  of  his  visit.  He  came  to  plead  the  cause  of 
Admiral  Byng. 

Richelieu  had  just  taken  Minorca  from  the  English.  The 
fleet  sent  by  England  to  its  relief  retired  under  Byng,  before  the 
French.  Paris  went  mad  with  delight  as  only  Paris  can,  and 
sang  the  exploits  of  Richelieu  in  one  of  those  national  songs  whose 
glow  and  vigour  keep  them  fresh  for  ever. 

Plein  d’une  noble  audace 

Richelieu  presse,  attaque  la  place 

Voltaire  was  nearly  as  enthusiastic  as  Paris.  He  had  prophesied 
such  splendid  things  of  his  hero  ! And  it  would  have  been  very 
damping  to  his  ardour  to  have  had  his  prophecies  and  hero- 
worship  proved  wrong.  Then,  too,  England  had  been  so  con- 
fident of  victory ; and  so  dreadfully  rude  and  aggressive  in  her 
confidence.  Such  pride  deserved  a fall ; and  great  was  the  fall 
of  it.  To  be  beaten  on  the  sea  by  the  French  seemed  to  Britain 
like  being  struck  across  the  face  by  the  open  hand  of  insult.  She 
forgot  that  love  of  fair  play  which  she  has  some  right  to  call  her 
national  instinct.  She  did  what,  with  all  her  faults,  she  very 
seldom  does — she  hit  a man  when  he  was  down,  and  wreaked 
upon  him,  in  the  bitterness  of  her  disappointment,  the  anger  she 
should  have  kept  for  the  blundering  ministry  who  had  com- 
manded him  impossibilities.  Byng  was  arraigned  on  a charge  of 
treason  and  cowardice.  But  he  had  a friend — and  the  friend 
remembered  Voltaire.  True,  Voltaire  was  a Frenchman,  and 
the  closest  intimate  of  Richelieu.  But  Keith  knew  that  he  was 
first  of  all  a humanitarian  ; and  that  he  had  a passion  for  justice 
and  a rage  against  tyranny  which  made  him  love  his  enemies 
if  they  were  oppressed,  and  hate  even  his  friends  if  they  were 
oppressors.  On  December  20  Voltaire  wrote  to  Richelieu  telling 
Byng’s  story.  Richelieu  replied  in  an  open  letter  which  generously 


306 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1756-57 


vindicated  the  character  of  his  foe.  Had  Byng  continued  the 
fight,  the  English  fleet  must  have  been  totally  destroyed.  A 
clever  sailor  and  a brave  man,  his  misfortunes  were  from  the 
Hand  of  God — and  the  valour  of  the  French. 

Voltaire  sent  that  letter  to  Byng  with  a letter  of  his  own. 
He  had  known  the  Admiral  as  a young  man,  when  he  was  in 
England  ; but  he  judged  it  better  not  now  to  mention  that  they 
were  acquainted,  lest  his  interference  might  be  attributed  to  per- 
sonal partiality.  The  sequel  is  very  well  known.  The  miserable 
ministry  wanted  a scapegoat.  Though  Byng  was  recommended 
to  mercy  by  the  court  which  tried  him,  he  was  shot  on  March  14, 
1757,  meeting  his  death  with  the  courage  with  which  his  foes 
declared  he  had  met  them. 

He  left  grateful  messages  to  Richelieu  and  to  Voltaire ; and 
to  Voltaire  a copy  of  his  defence. 

The  author  of  ‘ Candide  ’ added  later  to  that  famous  satire  a 
few  stinging  and  immortal  lines  on  this  cause  celebre . 1 In  this 

country  it  is  good  to  put  an  admiral  to  death  now  and  then,  to 
encourage  the  others' 

Voltaire’s  part  in  the  affair  of  Byng  is  not  only  of  importance 
as  being  of  interest  to  English  people.  It  began  a new  era  in  his 
life. 

The  scoffer,  the  jester,  the  uprooter  had  found  nobler  work 
for  his  hands  at  last.  The  defender  of  Byng  became  the  avenger 
of  La  Barre,  of  Sirven,  of  Montbailli,  and  of  Calas. 


ZEt.  62-63] 


307 


CHAPTER  XXX 

THE  INTERFERENCE  IN  THE  SEVEN  YEARS'  WAR,  THE  ‘ GENEVA  ’ 
ARTICLE,  AND  LIFE  AT  DELICES 

On  January  5,  1757,  Damiens,  an  unfortunate  lunatic,  made  a 
very  feeble  attempt  upon  the  life  of  Louis  XV.  As  is  usual  in 
such  cases,  the  King  was  accredited  with  infinite  calm  and 
courage,  though  his  heroism  had  consisted  entirely  in  being 
the  unwilling  victim  of  a very  small  wound  from  a very  small 
penknife.  However,  he  took  the  penknife  to  be  the  chosen 
instrument  of  the  wrath  of  heaven ; went  to  bed  ; sent  a contrite 
message  to  the  Queen  ; and  for  ten  days  declined  to  have  any 
dealings  with  the  lively  Pompadour. 

On  January  6,  d’Argenson  wrote  Voltaire  a very  courtier-like 
account  of  the  affair.  To  say  that  when  Voltaire  heard  that  a 
New  Testament  had  been  found  in  the  poor  lunatic’s  pocket  he 
was  delighted,  is  to  express  his  sentiments  feebly.  A Testament ! 
I told  you  so  ! All  assassins  have  ‘ a Bible  with  their  daggers.’ 
But  have  you  ever  heard  of  one  who  had  a Cicero,  a Plato,  or 
a Virgil  ? 

He  turned,  twisted,  and  tossed  the  subject  with  all  that  gibing 
buffoonery  which  was  his  forte  and  other  men’s  fear.  Damiens 
died  under  tortures  which  were  a disgrace  to  civilisation. 
D’Argenson,  Secretary  of  State,  and  Machault,  Keeper  of  the 
Seals,  who  had  been  bold  and  foolish  enough  to  suppose  that 
the  King  would  be  able  to  kill  time  without  his  Pompadour, 
united,  in  her  brief  disgrace,  to  crush  her.  With  her  return  to 
power,  she  crushed  them.  On  February  1 they  were  both  exiled. 
A few  days  earlier,  the  other  brother  d’Argenson  (the  better 
friend  of  the  two  to  Voltaire)  had  died.  Voltaire  might  well  say 
that  his  own  fate  was  more  worth  having  than  that  of  a Secre- 
tary of  State  who  was  banished  ; and  that  he  would  rather  scold 

x 2 


308 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1757 


his  gardeners  than  pay  court  to  kings.  In  February  he  received  a 
very  flattering  invitation  from  Elizabeth,  Empress  of  Russia,  to 
go  to  Petersburg  to  write  4 The  History  of  Peter  the  Great,*  her 
father.  He  undertook  to  write  the  history.  But  he  declined  the 
invitation.  Frederick,  too,  was  trying  coquetries  on  him — such 
a tender  letter,  for  instance,  from  Dresden  on  January  19  ! But 
here  again  he  was  firm  : 4 1 want  neither  king  nor  autocracy. 
I have  tasted  them  . . . that  is  enough.* 

The  early  months  of  the  year  1757  were  passing,  indeed,  not 
a little  pleasantly  at  Monrion. 

The  society  of  Lausanne,  living  up  to  its  character  of  being 
more  liberal  than  that  of  Geneva,  was  only  too  delighted  to  wel- 
come such  an  amusing  person  as  Voltaire  in  its  midst.  Many 
Lausannois  were  French — all  French  in  their  social  charms  and 
their  language — and  only  Swiss  in  their  sincerity  and  simplicity. 
Voltaire  said  that,  as  an  audience,  there  were  a couple  of  hundred 
of  them  who  were  worth  the  whole  parterre  of  Paris,  and  who 
would  have  hissed  Crdbillon’s  4 Catilina  * off  the  stage.  What 
higher  praise  could  he  have  given  to  anybody?  Lausanne, 
indeed,  would  not  have  been  Swiss  if  there  had  not  been  a 
certain  section  of  its  society  who  held  themselves  aloof  from  this 
volatile  Deist  and  his  more  volatile  entertainments.  Nor  would 
it  have  been  a country  town  if  there  had  not  been  in  it  some 
touchy  and  discontented  persons  who  were  offended  with  M.  de 
Voltaire  because  he  had  not  asked  them  often  enough  or  had 
asked  someone  else  too  often.  Voltaire  gaily  divided  the  society 
into  two  parts  : first,  the  Olympe,  which  included  both  the  strait- 
laced and  the  offended  ; and,  second,  the  Sensible  People.  That 
classification  spoke  for  itself.  He  was  not  a little  amused  one 
day  when,  hearing  that  an  Olympe  lady  had  had  a parody  of 
4 Zaire  * acted  at  her  house,  he  said  to  a young  girl  of  the  same 
name,  4 Ah  ! Mademoiselle,  it  is  you  who  have  been  laughing  at 
me ! ’ and  the  naive  girl  replied,  4 Oh  no,  Monsieur,  it  was  my 
aunt ! * 

But,  Olympes  notwithstanding,  Lausanne  as  a whole  was 
only  too  delighted  to  come  to  M.  de  Voltaire’s  theatricals,  and 
the  excellent  suppers  prepared  by  his  first-rate  cook.  It  did  not 
expect  him  to  pay  visits,  which  he  hated.  So  he  and  Madame 
Denis  spent  all  their  leisure  hours  learning  parts  and  coaching 


JEt.  63] 


THE  SEVEN  YEARS’  WAR 


309 


their  company.  Madame  Denis  lived  in  a whirl  of  ‘ tailors, 
hairdressers,  and  actors,’  and  being  well  amused  was  entirely 
amiable. 

The  plays  acted  were  ‘ Zaire,’  1 Alzire,’  and  the  ‘ Enfant 
Prodigue,’  and  a new  play  of  Voltaire’s  which  he  now  called 
‘ Fanine,’  and  which  was  afterwards  called  ‘ Zulime.’ 

Voltaire  persistently  declared  that  Madame  Denis  acted 
‘ Zaire  ’ infinitely  better  than  Gaussin,  4 though  she  has  not 
such  fine  eyes ; ’ which  was  a very  delicate  way  of  describing  her 
squint. 

In  March  they  ‘ preached  the  “ Enfant  Prodigue,”  with  an 
opera-bouffe  (“  Serva  Padrona”)  for  dessert.’  Also  in  March, 
they  played  ‘ Zulime  ’ ‘ better  than  it  will  be  played  in  Paris,’ 
said  its  author.  He  proudly  numbered  among  the  audience  on 
its  first  night  twelve  Calvinist  ministers  and  their  young  students, 
studying  for  the  Church.  Here  was  liberal-mindedness  indeed  ! 
Besides  acting  plays,  there  was  the  house  to  improve  or  to  alter. 
Its  master  was  surrounded  with  workmen.  He  had  also  a parrot 
and  a squirrel.  He  had  turned  to  play-acting,  he  said,  because 
though  ‘ tranquillity  is  a beautiful  thing — ennui  is  of  its  ac- 
quaintance and  family.’  But  he  knew  too  well,  by  that  old 
courtly  experience,  that  the  worst  of  all  boredoms  is  perpetual 
amusement.  He  was  happy  at  Monrion  because  there,  as  every- 
where, he  knew  how  to  work  as  well  as  to  play.  In  articles  for  the 
‘ Encyclopaedia,’  rewriting  ‘ Zulime,’  and  beginning  4 The  History 
of  Peter  the  Great,’  he  justified  his  existence.  He  had  much  to 
do,  so  he  enjoyed  his  theatricals  and  the  lovely  country  in  which 
he  found  himself,  as  only  the  busy  can  enjoy  anything.  ‘ From 
my  bed  I can  see  the  lake,  the  Rhone,  and  another  river.  Have 
you  a better  view  ? Have  you  tulips  in  March  ? . . . My  vines, 
my  orchard,  and  myself  owe  no  man  anything.  . . .’ 

Was  it  glamour  again  ? If  it  was,  it  was  a better  glamour 
than  had  made  him  dream  Prussia  heaven,  and  Frederick  the 
Great  a faithful  friend. 

On  June  3 he  went  back  to  Delices  for  the  summer.  Madame 
Denis  was  still  in  high  good- humour— furnishing  the  house, 
entertaining,  acting.  Voltaire  said  she  was  ‘ a niece  who  made 
the  happiness  of  his  life.’  Everything  was  couleur  de  rose . 
Switzerland  had  proved  a successful  venture  indeed.  By  August 


310 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1757 


the  man  who  now  signed  himself  the  Swiss  Voltaire  had  acquired 
yet  another  house  in  Lausanne — Chene,  in  the  Rue  de  Lausanne, 
which  was  the  last  street  in  the  town  on  the  Geneva  side,  and 
from  where  he  had  exquisite  views  of  the  lake.  He  rented  it  for 
nine  years.  Quite  near  it  was  a house  called  Mon  Repos,  which 
belonged  to  two  of  Voltaire’s  amateur  dramatic  company,  the 
Marquis  and  Marquise  de  Genlis.  Very  soon  these  two  enthu- 
siasts made,  in  a barn  adjoining  their  house,  a theatre  which 
practically  belonged  to  Voltaire,  and  where  in  future  nearly  all 
his  theatricals  were  held.  His  first  letter  from  Chene  is  dated 
August  29,  1757.  Here  he  soon  received  with  great  gravity  the 
Lord  Bailiffs  of  Berne  : good,  sober,  pompous  people,  with  a very 
amusing  idea  of  their  own  importance,  and  a strictly  limited 
sense  of  humour.  ‘ What  the  deuce,  M.  de  Voltaire,’  said  one  of 
them  one  day,  i are  you  always  writing  verses  for  ? What  is  the 
good  of  it,  I ask  you  ? It  leads  to  nothing.  Now  J,  you  see,  am 
a Bailiff.’  And  another  day,  a second  observed  solemnly,  ‘ They 
say  you  have  written  against  God.  That  is  bad,  but  I hope  He 
will  pardon  you ; and  against  religion,  which  is  worse ; and 
against  our  Lord,  which  is  worse  still : but  He  will  forgive  you 
in  His  mercy.  Only  take  care,  M.  de  Voltaire,  you  do  not  write 
against  their  Excellencies  the  High  Bailiffs,  for  they  will  never 
pardon  you  ! ’ It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  the  zest  and  delight 
with  which  Voltaire  repeated  these  stories. 

These  good  Swiss  had  not  only  charming  scenery,  cultivated 
society,  and  some  kind  of  freedom,  but  they  were  also,  without 
intending  it,  positively  amusing ! It  would  have  been  well  for 
Voltaire’s  peace  of  mind  if  he  could  have  engrossed  himself 
entirely  in  their  small  world,  and  forgotten  wholly  that  vaster, 
louder  one,  which  stretched  wide  beyond  Helices,  Monrion,  and 
Chene.  But  he  had  ever  itching  fingers  for  a fight. 

In  the  August  of  1756  had  begun  the  third,  longest,  and 
greatest  struggle  for  Silesia,  the  Seven  Years’  War.  Voltaire 
did  not  choose  to  remember  that,  though  he  had  tried  diplomacy 
before,  he  had  never  tried  it  successfully.  He  flung  himself, 
head  foremost  in  every  sense,  into  the  contest.  He  began  in  the 
spring  of  1757  by  inventing  a war  machine  : ‘ an  engine  of 
massacre  upon  the  plan  of  the  Assyrian  war  chariots  of  old.’ 
Certainly,  he  was  a peace  advocate.  But  if  men  must  destroy 


Mt.  63] 


THE  SEVEN  YEARS’  WAR 


311 


each  other,  let  them  do  so  by  the  best  and  quickest  of  possible 
means.  He  had,  too,  had  a dozen  careers  already  without  adding 
to  them  that  of  a scientific  inventor.  It  is  marvellous,  but  true, 
that  this  1 paper  smudger’s  ’ idea — the  appellation  was  his  own — 
was  really  very  excellent.  The  machine  was  also  intended  to 
carry  ammunition  and  forage.  The  Minister  of  War  thought 
well  of  it.  The  inventor  recommended  it  highly  to  Richelieu. 
The  Assyrian  chariots  were  not  tried  until  they  were  used  for 
carrying  grape-shot,  but  they  were  not  the  less  an  uncommonly 
bright,  ingenious,  and  Voltairian  invention. 

The  inventor  relinquished  the  idea  of  their  immediate  use 
rather  sadly.  But  the  war,  considered  apart  from  war  chariots, 
was  becoming  of  personal  moment  to  him. 

In  the  spring  of  1757  the  Petticoats,  which  were  the  damna- 
tion of  France,  swept  her  into  it. 

In  his  old  Paris  days,  Voltaire  had  known,  and  scornfully 
liked,  a certain  rosy-cheeked  bon  contour  of  an  abbe,  called  Bernis. 
Verse-maker  and  bon-vivant — not  yet  developed  into  the  shrewder 
and  wiser  personage  his  4 Memoirs  and  Letters  ’ reveal  him — 
Voltaire  had  named  the  abbe  the  flower-girl  of  Parnassus,  or 
Babet,  after  a famous  pretty  flowerseller  of  the  day ; and  loved 
to  tease  him  on  those  rosy  cheeks  and  that  cheerful  air.  Babet, 
who  was  nothing  if  not  audacious,  had  asked  Boyer  (the  ane  of 
Mirepoix,  who  had  died  in  1755)  for  a post : and  when  Boyer  told 
him  that  as  long  as  he  was  in  power  a Babet  had  nothing  to  hope 
for,  replied,  ‘ Sir,  I shall  wait.’  The  answer  ran  through  Paris. 
It  was  the  beginning  of  success.  Madame  de  Pompadour  turned 
her  smile  on  this  round-faced  wit ; pensioned  him  ; installed  him 
in  the  Tuileries ; and  made  him  ambassador  to  Vienna,  and 
Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs.  Frederick,  who  had  received  the 
mistress’s  kind  regards,  sent  through  Voltaire,  with  that  curt  1 1 
do  not  know  her,’  had  also  laughed  at  Bernis-Babet  in  the  fatal 
‘ (Euvre  de  Poeshie  du  Roi  Mon  Maitre.’ 

Therefore,  on  May  1,  1757,  ‘ the  first  minister  of  the  state,’ 
Pompadour,  made  her  willing  tool,  Bernis,  sign  an  offensive  and 
defensive  treaty  with  the  ambassador  of  Austria  against  Frede- 
rick the  Great,  and  plunged  France  into  the  blood  of  the  Seven 
Years’  War. 

Voltaire’s  interest  in  it  was  varied  and  conflicting.  He  was 


312 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1757 


the  friend  of  Richelieu,  of  Bernis,  and  the  Pompadour  : and  he 
was  a Frenchman.  He  had  strong  sympathy  with  brave  Maria 
Theresa  and  with  Austria — the  allies  of  his  country.  Her  great 
enemy,  Frederick,  was  both  his  friend  and  his  foe : still  loved, 
still  admired,  and  still  unforgiven.  All  through  these  seven 
years  one  sees  that  fatal  affair  of  Frankfort  rankling  in  Voltaire’s 
heart ; struggling  with  his  admiration  for  Frederick  as  a king 
and  a soldier  : with  his  pity  for  him  when  beaten,  with  his  pride 
in  him  when  victorious.  All  through  the  war  Frederick  wrote 
him  prose  and  verse ; the  deepest  sorrows  of  his  soul,  reproaches, 
confidences,  yearnings.  And  Voltaire  answered  half  bitterly  and 
half  tenderly,  with  angry  allusions  to  the  past,  and  brave  words 
to  comfort  the  King’s  sore  heart  for  the  future  : never  consistent, 
not  seldom  spiteful,  and  yet  touched,  affectionate,  and  sympa- 
thetic. 

Explain  the  attitude  who  can. 

In  July  1757  Voltaire  wrote  to  Richelieu  begging  him,  if  he 
passed  by  Frankfort,  to  send  the  four  ears  of  those  two  coquins, 
Freytag  and  Schmidt. 

In  August  he  was  busy  trying  to  bring  about  peace,  through 
the  medium  of  the  Margravine  of  Bayreuth  and  Richelieu,  between 
Freytag’s  master  and  France.  This  first  diplomatic  interference 
of  Voltaire’s  in  the  war  was  not  badly  planned.  In  his  own 
words,  he  ‘ wanted  Richelieu  to  add  the  quality  of  arbitrator  to 
that  of  general.’  The  scheme  was  so  far  a success  that,  on 
August  19,  Wilhelmina  replied  that  her  brother  was  as  grateful 
for  such  a proposal  as  herself.  The  moment  for  it  was  oppor- 
tune. Frederick  was  still  bruised  and  broken  by  the  crushing 
defeat  he  had  suffered  at  Kolin  on  June  18.  He  wrote  direct  to 
Richelieu  on  September  6,  asking  him  to  act  as  an  arbitrator ; 
and  Richelieu  replied  that  he  was  very  willing.  Did  the  hermit 
of  Delices  rub  his  lean  hands  and  congratulate  himself  on  a good 
piece  of  work?  Perhaps  he  knew  the  temper  of  an  offended 
woman  and  a piqued  Bernis  too  well.  The  blood  of  her  children 
was  as  water  to  these  rulers  of  France.  The  Court  declined 
arbitration. 

The  unhappy  Margravine  wrote  to  Voltaire  on  September  12 
that  Frederick  was  reduced  to  frightful  extremities.  She  might 
well  so  write.  In  October  Voltaire  sent  to  the  King  one  of  the 


Mr.  63J 


THE  SEVEN  YEARS’  WAR 


313 


wisest  and  kindliest  letters  which  he  ever  penned.  He  dissuaded 
Frederick  from  a contemplation  of  suicide.  He  stimulated  him 
by  admiration.  He  deterred  him  by  insisting  that  such  an  act 
would  not  only  sadden  his  friends,  but  please  his  foes.  When, 
in  this  same  month,  Voltaire  read  some  dismal  verses  Frederick 
had  written  to  d’Argens  on  the  same  unhappy  topic,  he  wrote  a 
second  letter  to  the  King,  diplomatically  lauding  the  verses  to  the 
skies,  and  again  passionately  dissuading  such  a poet,  and  such  a 
man,  from  the  disgrace  of  suicide. 

In  those  fatal  4 Memoirs  ’ (meant  to  be  secret)  he  was  now 
writing  at  Delices,  Voltaire,  indeed,  avenged  himself  for  Frey  tag 
and  Frankfort  by  declaring  that  much  of  that  Epistle  to  d’Argens 
was  stolen  from  Chaulieu  and  from  himself  ; while  that  love  of 
justice  which  was  always  getting  the  better  of  his  malice,  in  spite 
of  himself,  made  him  add  that,  under  the  circumstances,  it  was 
wonderful  for  a king  to  have  written  two  hundred  verses  at  all. 

On  October  8 dismal  Luc  confided  to  Wilhelmina  that  he  had 
‘ laughed  ’ at  the  exhortations  of  Patriarch  Voltaire ; and  the 
very  next  day  wrote  to  the  Patriarch  a letter  owning  that  those 
admonitions  had  had  effect,  and  ending : 

Though  the  storm  beats  high 
I must  fight,  not  fly, 

And  a King  live  and  die. 

Meanwhile,  at  D61iees,  busy  Voltaire  was  trying  his  hand  a 
second  time  at  peace  negotiations.  This  time  his  medium  was 
de  Tencin — that  crafty  and  haughty  Cardinal,  who,  three  years 
before,  at  Lyons,  had  found  it  impolitic  to  invite  Voltaire  to 
dinner.  But  the  Cardinal  loved  intrigue,  and  hated  Austria  and 
the  Austrian  alliance  with  France,  from  his  soul.  When,  on 
November  5,  1757,  Frederick  beat  French  and  Austrians  at 
Rossbach  with  ‘the  most  unheard-of  and  the  most  complete 
defeat  in  history  ’ (the  vigorous  words  are  Voltaire’s),  all  angry 
France  shared  the  Cardinal’s  hatred  of  the  rosy-cheeked  Bernis’ 
treaty  with  the  Court  of  Vienna.  De  Tencin  allied  himself  with 
the  man  he  had  despised — Voltaire — ‘ to  engage  the  Margravine 
to  confide  to  him  the  interests  of  her  brother  the  King,’  and  so  to 
procure  peace  between  France  and  Prussia.  Prussia  was  willing 
enough.  Voltaire  was  the  intermediary  through  whom  all  the 


314 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1757-58 


letters  passed.  He  said  malignly  that  he  enjoyed  the  post 
because  he  foresaw  the  disappointment  the  Cardinal  was  prepar- 
ing for  himself.  In  reality,  he  was  something  less  Machiavellian, 
and  really  thought  the  peace  he  hoped  for  might  be  brought 
about.  De  Tencin  communicated  directly  with  Louis  XV. ; and 
sent  him  a letter  of  the  Margravine,  written  to  be  so  sent.  But 
Maria  Theresa  had  bowed  her  pride  to  flatter  Madame  de  Pompa- 
dour ; while  Frederick  had  said  ‘ I do  not  know  her.’  The 
Pompadour’s  kingly  slave  answered  de  Tencin  icily  that  the 
Secretary  for  Foreign  Affairs  would  instruct  his  Eminence  of  the 
royal  intentions.  So  Babet,  the  ‘ flower-girl,’  the  verse-maker, 
the  bon-vivant,  dictated  to  the  astute  Cardinal  the  unfavourable 
reply  he  was  to  make  to  the  Margravine.  De  Tencin  had  to 
sign  it.  He  died  only  a fortnight  later — of  mortification,  said 
Voltaire. 

Thus  ended  Voltaire’s  second  interference  in  the  Seven  Years’ 
War.  Both  were  useless.  His  interest  in  the  affair  was  very  far 
from  being  ended,  or  even  weakened.  But  in  the  meantime  there 
were  disturbances  nearer  home. 

It  was  sixteen  months  since  d’Alembert  had  stayed  at  Delices, 
and  been  charmed  by  the  liberal-mindedness  of  Calvinism.  The 
result  of  that  visit  was,  as  has  been  noted,  the  famous  article 
entitled  ‘ Geneva’  in  the  storm-breeding  ‘Encyclopaedia.’  In 
this  December  of  1757  the  pious  pastors  of  that  town  heard  that 
they  were  therein  complimented  as  no  longer  believing  in  the 
divinity  of  Christ  or  in  hell ; as  having  in  many  cases  no  other 
religion  than  ‘ a perfect  Socinianism,’  rejecting  all  mystery ; as, 
among  the  learned  at  least,  having  a faith  which  had  reduced 
itself  to  belief  in  one  God,  and  which  was  alone  distinguished 
from  pure  Deism  by  a cold  respect  for  the  Scriptures  and  for 
Christ. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  fancy  what  an  effect  such  statements, 
uttered  by  a d’Alembert,  and  in  what  was  then  the  most  famous 
book  in  the  world,  would  have  on  that  strict,  simple,  pure-living 
sect.  Was  it  true  ? Could  any  of  it  be  true  ? The  dreadful 
fear  that  it  might  be — that  that  stern,  narrow  creed,  with  its 
brief  assertions  and  its  wide  negations,  might  lead,  or  tend,  un- 
known to  its  followers,  to  something  very  like  a barren  Deism — 
appears  to  have  taken  possession  of  their  souls. 


Mu.  63-64] 


THE  4 GENEVA  ’ AETICLE 


315 


On  December  12,  Voltaire,  who  had  been  waiting  sixteen 
months  for  this  denouement , began  to  enjoy  himself.  4 These 
droll  people,’  he  wrote  to  d’Alembert  4 actually  dare  to  complain 
of  the  praise  you  have  given  them — to  believe  in  a God  and  to 
have  more  reason  than  faith.  Some  of  them  accuse  me  of  having 
a profane  alliance  with  you.  They  say  they  will  protest  against 
your  article.  Let  them,  and  laugh  at  them.’ 

On  December  28,  at  a meeting  of  Calvinistic  pastors,  they 
made,  with  deep  heart-searchings,  a formal  inquiry  to  assure 
themselves  that  none  of  them  had  given  ground  for  d’Alembert’s 
— compliments.  They  then  drew  up  a commission,  which 
appointed  Dr.  Tronchin,  not  less  a sincere  Christian  than  he  was 
a sincere  friend  of  the  Deist  Voltaire,  to  reply  to  the  article  in  the 
‘ Encyclopaedia  ’ and  4 to  wipe  away  the  stain  ’ that  d’Alembert 
had  affixed  to  their  character.  It  was  Tronchin’s  charm  as  a 
writer  that  he  touched  the  heart  as  well  as  appealed  to  the  head. 
He  refuted  the  imputations  of  d’Alembert  in  terms  not  a little 
touching.  From  Paris,  on  January  6,  1758,  d’Alembert  replied, 
as  he  could  but  reply,  that  he  was  convinced  of  the  truth  of  his 
words  : and  what  he  had  written,  he  had  written.  When  Geneva 
further  asked  him  to  name  the  pastors  who  had  given  rise  to  such 
opinions,  he  very  honourably  declined.  On  February  8 the  com- 
mission produced  its  Confession  of  Faith.  As  it  did  not  insist 
on  the  doctrine  of  Everlasting  Punishment,  or  declare  that  Christ 
was  equal  to  His  Father,  or  lay  stress  on  the  worship  of  Him, 
Voltaire  said  with  some  truth,  when  he  wrote  to  d’Alembert,  that 
they  had  declared  themselves  Christian  Deists  after  all,  and 
justified  the  article  in  the  4 Encyclopaedia.’ 

4 Geneva,’  in  fact,  brought  home  to  the  thoughtful  Calvinist 
the  logical  outcome  of  his  religion.  The  shock  was  great.  To 
stand  face  to  face  with  the  ultimate  consequences  of  their  belief 
would  indeed  startle  the  votaries  of  many  other  creeds  besides 
Calvinism. 

Their  difference  on  the  most  vital  of  all  subjects  did  not  affect 
the  friendship  of  the  great  Voltaire  and  the  great  Tronchin. 

During  this  winter  of  1757-58  the  Doctor  was,  for  the  time 
being,  almost  the  greater  man  of  the  two.  He  had  just  returned 
from  Paris,  where  he  had  prescribed  for  all  its  rank,  wit,  and 
fashion ; and  where  he  and  his  inoculation  had  become  a furore 


316 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1757-58 


and  the  mode.  In  Geneva  he  now  started  a cure,  to  which 
flocked  all  the  mondaines  of  Paris  to  learn  the  rudiments  of 
hygiene,  of  temperance,  and  of  common-sense ; to  be  taught  for 
the  first  time  in  their  lives  the  value  of  simple  living  ; and  to 
undergo  inoculation. 

Voltaire  always  loved  the  bold  and  sensible  regimen  of  this 
good  physician.  Like  the  women,  he  was  also  not  a little 
influenced  by  the  great  doctor’s  charming  manner,  handsome 
face,  and  splendid  six  feet  of  height.  Then,  too,  supposing  ennui 
should  be  4 of  the  acquaintance  and  family  ’ of  retirement,  this 
‘ cure  ’ brought  half  the  wit  of  the  capital  to  the  very  doors  of 
the  Hermit  of  Delices.  The  year  1757  was  not  over,  and  their 
acquaintance  was  of  the  briefest,  when  Voltaire,  with  his  usual 
impulsiveness,  was  already  in  the  midst  of  a delightful  intimacy 
with  one  of  the  cleverest  and  most  sympathetic  of  the  Tronchin 
patients,  Madame  d’Epinay.  Bright,  black-eyed,  about  two-and- 
thirty  years  old,  the  ill-treated  wife  of  a Farmer- General,  the 
head  of  a salon,  and  the  coquettish  friend  of  Rousseau,  Madame 
d’Epinay  reflected  in  her  sparkling  little  French  mind  the  clever- 
ness of  a clever  age,  and,  without  ever  saying  or  doing  anything 
which  gave  substantial  evidence  of  a superior  intelligence,  had  a 
great  deal  of  that  vague  quality  which  is  now  called  culture.  Vol- 
taire delighted  in  her  ; played  with  her  ; laughed  with  her  ; talked 
with  her  ; called  her  his  Beautiful  Philosopher  ; wrote  her  innu- 
merable little  notes  about  innumerable  little  nothings ; welcomed 
her  constantly  at  Delices  ; and  in  January  1758  had  her  to  stay 
there  for  two  or  three  days  with  her  doctor.  Madame’s  complaint 
was  of  the  nerves,  and  the  very  best  cure  for  that  kind  of  disease 
is  to  be  amused,  as  everybody  knows.  So  she  was  delighted  to  come 
to  Delices,  where  Madame  Denis  was  ‘entirely  comic,’  and  ‘ fit  to 
make  you  die  of  laughing  ; ’ short,  fat,  ugly  ; quite  goodnatured  ; 
a liar,  simply  from  habit ; clever  enough  to  seem  so  without 
being  so  ; always  gesticulating,  talking,  and  arguing,  especially 
when  that  ‘ Geneva  ’ article — just  now  very  much  on  the  tapis — 
was  mentioned ; when  she  threw  her  arms  and  hands  about, 
abused  republics  and  their  laws  with  a fine  generality,  and  was 
entirely  absurd. 

The  little,  shrewd,  shallow  visitor  was  not  quite  so  sure  about 
the  great  Voltaire.  He  might  have  been  fifteen,  he  was  so  gay, 


^Et.  63—64] 


LIFE  AT  DELICES 


317 


lively,  and  inconsequent ! But  then  he  had  a number  of  quite 
childish  prejudices ; and  an  air  of  laughing  at  everybody,  even 
himself.  Madame  d’Epinay  was  not  at  all  certain  she  liked  that . 
In  Paris  she  had  been  taken  gravely  as  a clever  woman.  The 
owl  of  Delices,  looking  at  her  through  those  little,  cynic,  half-shut 
and  all-seeing  eyes  of  his,  regarded  her  as  an  ingenious  little 
mechanical  toy,  whom  it  amused  him  to  set  in  motion.  That  he 
was  very  gallant  with  her  was  true  enough.  But  gallantry  is 
hardly  a compliment  to  a woman  who  wants  to  be  looked  upon 
as  savante . 

Madame  d’Epinay  was  not  the  only  one  of  Tronchin’s 
patients  who  visited  Voltaire.  Almost  all  of  them  came  to  peep 
at  him.  Here  was  the  Marquise  de  Muy—  ‘ a very  little  soul  in 
a very  little  body  much  debilitated  by  remedies,’  said  Tronchin — 
but  the  chere  amie  of  Choiseul  the  minister,  and  so  to  be  culti- 
vated by  a far-seeing  Voltaire. 

Here,  too,  came  the  nephew  and  niece  of  de  Tencin,  the 
Montferrats — whom  Voltaire  received  very  kindly  though  he  liked 
neither  them  nor  their  uncle. 

Among  neighbours  who  were  not  of  Tronchin’s  ‘ cure,’  Huber, 
celebrated  as  a painter  and  wit,  had  been  one  of  the  most  constant 
visitors  at  Delices  from  the  first,  and  was  fast  dropping  into  the 
position  he  never  afterwards  relinquished,  of  ami  de  la  maison . 
Madame  Tronchin — as  plain  and  disagreeable  as  her  husband  was 
handsome  and  charming — was  a guest  too.  ‘ Et  que  fait  Madame 
Tronchin  ? ’ said  someone  one  day  to  the  sprightly  Madame 
Cramer,  herself  a visitor.  ‘Elle  fait  peur,’  was  the  answer. 
Madame  Cramer,  as  the  wife  of  Gabriel  Cramer,  one  of  Voltaire’s 
publishers,  and  as,  in  her  own  person,  gay,  naive,  and  witty,  was 
always  a persona  grata  at  Delices.  Her  husband  and  brother-in- 
law  were  as  successful  socially  as  in  their  business ; acted  in 
their  client’s  theatricals,  and  were  delightfully  good-looking  and 
pleasant. 

Voltaire’s  nearest  neighbours  at  Delices,  a Professor  Pictet 
and  his  wife  and  daughter,  were  constantly  of  his  parties.  The 
daughter  Charlotte  was  a gay  and  pretty  little  person,  who  had 
aroused  the  jealousy  of  Madame  Denis  by  embroidering  Voltaire 
a cap  to  wear  on  the  top  of  the  great  peruke  he  always  affected. 
V oltaire  repaid  the  present  by  trying  to  find  Mademoiselle  what 


318 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1757—58 


he  always  considered  the  summum  bonum,  a husband ; and 
Madame  Denis  was  not  precisely  pleased  when  Charlotte  married 
a handsome  major  of  eight-and-twenty,  for  whom  the  foolish 
niece  herself  had  had  a tendresse.  In  1757  a Baron  Gleichen, 
who  wrote  Souvenirs,  also  visited  Delices. 

It  is  no  contradiction  to  say  of  Voltaire  that  he  was  all 
through  his  life  both  the  most  unsociable  and  the  most  sociable 
of  men. 

At  Delices  there  were  nearly  always  seven  or  eight  persons  to 
supper.  On  one  occasion  at  least,  the  house  was  so  full  of  guests 
for  theatricals,  that  Madame  Denis,  having  no  bed,  sat  up  all 
through  the  night  playing  cards.  When  he  met  his  guests  no 
host  could  have  been  more  agreeable  than  Voltaire.  He  had  a 
hundred  stories  to  tell.  He  made  so  many  mots  that  half  the 
mots  of  the  eighteenth  century  have  been  fathered  upon  him  by 
posterity.  Sometimes  he  read  aloud,  or  quoted  from  memory. 
He  was  inimitably  gay,  goodnatured,  and  courteous.  One  woman 
(who  did  not  love  him)  said  that  he  alone  of  his  age  knew  how 
to  speak  to  women  as  women  like  to  be  spoken  to.  That  old 
quality  which  had  made  him  revere  the  intellect  of  Madame 
du  Chatelet  made  him  respect  now  whatever  was  respectable  in 
the  intellect  of  his  female  companions.  That  surest  sign  of 
inferiority — to  be  afraid  of  mental  superiority  in  the  weaker 
sex — was  certainly  never  to  be  found  in  Voltaire.  If  he  toyed 
with  a d’Epinay,  it  was  because  she  was  but  a toy  after  all.  He 
seached  so  diligently  for  cleverness  in  his  nieces  that  he  actually 
thought  he  had  found  it.  Some  of  the  best  and  most  careful 
letters  he  ever  wrote  are  those  to  Madame  du  Deffand — who  was 
old,  poor,  blind — but  splendidly  intelligent. 

He  certainly  took  very  good  care  during  this  social  winter  of 
1757-58 — as  in  all  other  social  winters  and  summers — not  to 
see  too  much  of  his  guests,  male  or  female.  He  worked  twelve 
or  fifteen  hours  a day ; and  generally  kept  his  secretary  writing 
part  of  the  night  as  well.  He  never  suffered  himself  to  be 
interrupted  in  the  mornings ; and  was  fond  of  saying  that  he 
believed  less  in  optimism  at  that  time  than  at  any  other. 

As  in  the  old  days  at  Cirey,  he  was  often  too  busy  to  join 
his  friends  at  dinner,  and  ate  ‘ no  matter  what,  no  matter  when,' 
instead. 


Mt.  63-64] 


LIFE  AT  DELICES 


319 


In  January  1758  he  migrated  to  Chene,  his  newly  acquired 
house  in  Lausanne ; and,  in  the  formal  phrase  of  one  of  his 
guests  there,  by  ‘ his  wit  and  his  philosophy,  his  table  and  his 
theatre,  refined  in  a visible  degree  the  manners  ’ of  that  town. 
That  guest  was  an  English  youth  called  Gibbon,  who,  having  been 
led  into  Roman  Catholicism  at  college,  had  been  sent  to  a minister 
at  Lausanne  to  be  led  out  of  it  again — by  Calvinism.  In  the 
intervals  of  falling  in  love  with  the  beaux  yeux  of  Mademoiselle 
Curchod  (afterwards  Madame  Necker),  the  self-satisfied  young 
gentleman  found  time  during  two  winters  to  pompously  approve 
of  M.  de  Voltaire  in  various  roles — in  ‘ Zaire,’  ‘ Alzire,’  ‘Fanine,’ 
and  the  ‘ Enfant  Prodigue,’  played  in  that  theatre  in  the  granary 
of  Mon  Repos.  Gibbon  wrote  hereafter,  in  that  solemn,  polished, 
rewritten,  immortal  Autobiography,  that  M.  de  Voltaire’s 
‘ declamation  was  fashioned  to  the  pomp  and  cadence  of  the  old 
stage,  and  he  expressed  the  enthusiasm  of  poetry  rather  than  the 
feelings  of  Nature ; ’ while  Voltaire,  in  the  gay  impromptu  of  his 
style,  declared  of  himself  he  was  ‘ the  best  old  fool  in  any  troupe. 
I had  rage  and  tears — attitudes  and  a cap.’  He  added  that 
Madame  Denis  was  splendid  in  the  role  of  mothers  ; and  a little 
later  quite  seriously  announced  that  though  she  had  not  all  the 
talents  of  Mademoiselle  Clairon  (!)  she  was  much  more  pathetic 
and  human  ! The  observing  English  youth  in  the  audience 
considered,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  4 fat  and  ugly  niece  ’ quite 
ruined  the  parts  of 1 the  young  and  fair,’  and  was  not  nearly  clever 
enough  to  make  the  spectators  forget  the  defects  of  her  age  and 
person.  When  she  was  playing  the  heroine  in  1 Zaire  ’ she  did 
herself  say,  hoping  for  a compliment,  ‘ To  take  such  a part  one 
ought  to  be  young  and  beautiful ! ’ and  a well-meaning  gauche 
person  replied  1 Ah  ! Madame,  you  are  a living  proof  to  the  con- 
trary ’ ! Uncle  Voltaire  would  have  been  very  vif  \ no  doubt,  if  he 
had  known  of  Gibbon’s  unflattering  criticism  on  his  niece.  As  it 
was,  he  was  not  too  pleased  on  his  own  account  when  this  heavy 
young  genius  must  needs,  after  having  heard  them  only  twice, 
remember  and  repeat  certain  lines  wrhich  Voltaire  had  written  in 
the  first  enthusiasm  of  settling  at  Delices,  and  which  (of  course) 
contained  an  allusion  which  would  offend  somebody.  M.  de 
Voltaire  may  be  forgiven  if  he  wished  this  blundering  Mr.  Gibbon 
and  his  prodigious  memory — in  England. 


320 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1758 


In  May,  after  the  menage  Voltaire  had  moved  back  to  Delices, 
another  visitor  came  to  it.  She  was  Madame  da  Boccage,  famous 
for  her  learning,  as  modest  as  she  was  accomplished,  and  a woman 
quite  after  her  host’s  heart.  He  put  off  a visit  to  the  Elector 
Palatine  to  receive  her.  He  gave  up  his  bed  to  her  as  being  the 
most  comfortable  in  the  house ; and  got  up  plays  for  her  benefit. 
As  for  Madame,  she  found  him  everything  that  was  kind  and 
agreeable,  surrounded  by  the  best  company — that  is,  the  intel- 
lectually best  company — and  always  singing  the  praises  of  his 
rural  life.  In  fact,  the  only  thing  she  had  to  complain  of  was 
that  he  was  so  very  hospitable  that,  like  the  nieces,  she  was  always 
having  indigestion.  She  left  after  a visit  of  five  days,  and  long 
corresponded  with  her  host. 

Between  work  and  play,  the  Delices,  Monrion,  and  Chene, 
Voltaire  had  spent  more  than  three  years  in  Switzerland.  That 
they  had  been  happy  enough  to  have  made  him  altogether  forget 
that  a Paris,  a Louis,  and  a Pompadour  existed — and  neglected 
him — is  true  enough.  But  he  never  forgot.  If  on  one  side  of 
his  character  he  was  splendidly  a philosopher,  on  the  other  he  was 
always  an  ‘ old  baby  * crying  for  the  moon. 


JEt.  64] 


321 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

‘THE  LITERARY  WAR,’  AND  THE  PURCHASE  OF 
FERNEY  AND  TOURNEY 

On  June  21,  1758,  Voltaire  was  writing  delightedly  to  his  Angel 
to  tell  him  that  through  the  offices  of  the  pink-cheeked  Bernis, 
Louis  XV.  had  been  good  enough  to  give  a formal  permit  for  the 
greatest  Frenchman  of  the  age  to  retain  his  title  of  Gentleman- 
in -Ordinary. 

Frederick  said,  obviously  enough,  ‘ That  will  not  be  the  patent 
that  will  immortalise  you.’  But  the  Gentleman  himself  was  quite 
naively  delighted.  He  had  always  been  miserable  at  Court  and 
in  Paris,  but  he  so  much  wished  to  feel  he  could  go  back  there,  if 
he  liked  ! He  seems  to  have  regarded  this  formal  permission  to 
keep  his  title  as  the  thin  end  of  the  wedge.  But  it  was  not. 

‘ Let  him  stay  where  he  is,’  was  the  Bien-Aime’s  sole  com- 
ment on  Voltaire’s  exile.  Marmontel  suggested  to  Madame  de 
Pompadour  that  it  was  for  her  to  recall  him  ; but  Madame  could 
only  reply,  perhaps  not  untruthfully,  ‘ Ah,  no ! it  does  not  rest 
with  me.’ 

In  July,  Voltaire  visited  another  Court,  which  had  never  looked 
askance  at  him.  He  spent  a fortnight  with  his  old  friend  the 
Elector  Palatine,  at  Schwetzingen.  The  Elector  had  arranged  ' 
some  money  matters  for  Voltaire  greatly  to  his  advantage,  so  the 
visit  was  one  of  gratitude.  It  has  no  importance,  except  that  the 
story  runs  that  here  the  guest  was  so  engrossed  by  a mysterious 
Something  he  was  writing  that  he  shut  himself  up  in  his  room 
for  three  days,  only  opening  his  door  to  have  food  and  coffee 
passed  in.  On  the  fourth  day  Madame  Denis  forced  an  entry. 
Voltaire  threw  a manuscript  at  her,  saying,  ‘There,  curious,  that 
is  for  you.’  It  was  the  manuscript  of  ‘ Candide.’ 

The  only  drawback  to  the  little  anecdote  is  that  Madame 

Y 


822 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1758 


Denis  was  not  at  Schwetzingen  at  all — having  been  left  behind 
at  home  with  her  sister,  learning  parts.  1 Candide  5 may  have 
been  written  at  the  Elector’s  ; but  the  time  for  its  appearance 
was  not  yet  ripe. 

The  summer  of  1758  passed  without  much  incident  at 
Delices.  Elsewhere,  there  was  only  too  much.  The  Seven 
Years’  War — ‘ the  most  hellish  war  that  ever  was  fought,’  said 
Voltaire — raged  with  unabated  fury.  Frederick  had  recovered 
Silesia  by  a great  victory  at  Leuthen  on  December  5,  1757, 
when  he  beat  an  army  of  Austrians  three  times  as  large  as  his 
own.  On  August  25  of  this  1758  he  beat  the  Russians  at 
Zorndorf.  And  then  his  evil  star  rose  again.  On  October  14 
he  was  taken  by  surprise  and  defeated  with  great  loss  at  Hoch- 
kirch.  But  he  suffered  a still  greater  loss  that  day  in  the  death 
of  Wilhelmina,  Margravine  of  Bayreuth.  Worthy  in  courage 
to  be  the  sister  of  Frederick,  and  in  intelligence  to  be  the  friend 
of  Voltaire,  both  men  mourned  her  as  she  deserved  to  be  mourned. 
Frederick  wrote  that  there  are  some  troubles  against  which  all 
stoicism  and  all  the  reasonings  of  the  philosophers  are  alike 
useless.  He  was  face  to  face  with  such  a trouble  now.  Voltaire, 
at  the  King’s  request,  wrote  to  her  memory  an  ode  beginning, 
‘ Dear  and  illustrious  shade,  soul  brave  and  pure.’  But  it  is 
not  always  when  the  writer  is  himself  most  moved  that  his 
writings  are  most  moving.  There  are  some  griefs  which  para- 
lyse the  brain  and  make  every  utterance  cold.  Voltaire  was  no 
more  satisfied  with  his  poem  than  was  Frederick.  He  wrote 
another,  which  gave  the  unhappy  brother  the  first  moment  of 
comfort  he  had  had,  he  said,  for  five  months.  For  a time  their 
mutual  loss  and  grief  drew  the  two  friends  together  as  of  yore. 
They  put  away  their  grievances.  The  ‘ old  need  of  communica- 
tion, of  finding  each  other  again,  at  least  in  thought,’  was 
powerfully  present.  Over  Wilhelmina’s  grave  they  forgot  for  a 
while  Maupertuis  and  Akakia,  Freytag  and  Frankfort. 

Voltaire  would  have  known  himself  forgotten  and  obscure  if 
he  had  ever  lived  six  consecutive  months  in  his  life  without  being 
plunged  in  some  or  other  kind  of  quarrel.  That  ‘ Geneva  ’ 
article  was  still  a tree  of  discord  bearing  fruit.  It  will  not  be 
forgotten  that  to  oblige  the  most  hospitable  host  in  the  world, 
d’Alembert  had  introduced  into  it  a few  remarks  on  the  bene- 


AEt.  64] 


6 THE  LITERARY  WAR  ’ 


323 


ficial  effects  of  play-acting  in  general,  and  the  peculiar  benefits 
which  would  accrue  from  it  to  Geneva  in  particular. 

In  the  October  of  1758,  from  the  depths  of  his  forest  of 
Montmorency,  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau — intense,  morbid,  bitter, 
with  so  much  amiss  in  himself  that  he  supposed  all  other  men 
to  be  unreasonable  and  out  of  gear — wrote  to  d’Alembert  his 
famous  ‘ Letter  on  Plays.’ 

He  had  ‘ tried  his  wings  ’ against  d’Alembert’s  friend,  in  his 
reply  to  the  ‘ Poem  on  the  Disaster  of  Lisbon,’  and  Voltaire  had 
laughed  at  him  gaily  and  civilly  enough.  If  Jean  Jacques’  im- 
petuosity had  ever  waited  for  reason,  there  would  have  seemed 
none  now  why  he  should  not  enter  the  lists  again,  and  tilt  once 
more  with  this  active,  mocking,  sprightly  little  opponent,  whom 
everybody  knew  to  have  inspired  d’Alembert’s  sentiments. 

Jean  Jacques,  it  is  true,  was  a strange  person  to  write  against 
plays.  He  had  written  them  himself.  He  had  a genuine  admi- 
ration for  M.  de  Voltaire’s.  If  all  plays  were  but  like  his  ! 
But,  then,  they  are  not.  So  he  brought  to  bear  against  them  all 
the  magic  and  the  fervour  of  his  style,  and  flung  on  to  four 
hundred  pages  of  paper  his  astonishing  views  not  only  on  play- 
acting, but  on  women,  on  love,  and  on  literature. 

No  one  reads  ‘ La  Lettre  sur  les  Spectacles  ’ now.  But 
everybody  read  it  then,  and  though  the  stricter  of  the  educated 
Calvinists  only  coldly  acknowledged  Rousseau  as  an  ally,  the 
common  people  heard  him  gladly.  The  aristocracy  of  Geneva 
had  enjoyed  Voltaire’s  theatrical  evenings  too  much  to  bring 
themselves  to  disapprove  of  them. 

From  Paris  the  little  frail  d’Alembert  ‘ deigned  to  overwhelm 
that  fool  Jean  Jacques  with  reasons,’ in  a letter  full  of  grave 
and  stately  irony.  As  for  Voltaire,  he  waited,  as  he  could  afford 
to  wait.  He  had  taught  some  at  least  of  the  Genevans  to  be  as 
‘ mad  for  theatres  ’ as  he  was  himself  ; and — he  had  4 Candide  ’ 
up  his  sleeve. 

Running  parallel  with  that  controversy  on  theatres  was 
another.  Of  course  Voltaire  was  in  it— and  the  soul  of  it. 
That  goes  without  saying.  He  had  been  but  a short  time 
settled  in  Lausanne,  when  one  Saurin,  a poet- neighbour  of  his 
there,  begged  him  to  contradict  a certain  history  of  Joseph 
Saurin,  his  father,  as  given  by  Voltaire  in  a Catalogue  of  French 


324 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1758 


Writers,  added  to  his  ‘ Century  of  Louis  XIV/  In  that  cata- 
logue Voltaire  had  written  of  Joseph  what  not  only  he,  but  all 
the  world,  believed  to  be  true.  Joseph  had  been  a pastor  who, 
hating  the  life  of  Switzerland,  had  allowed  himself  to  be  very 
easily  brought  back  by  the  preaching  of  Bossuet  to  Roman 
Catholicism  and  to  France.  But  in  France  he  was  poor,  and  he 
hated  poverty.  Presently  came  rumours  of  robbery — of  robbery 
he  had  committed  in  church.  In  a letter  to  a Lausanne  pastor, 
Gonon,  Saurin  practically  confessed  to  these  robberies.  This 
letter  was  published  in  the  ‘ Swiss  Mercury  ’ of  April  1786,  and 
Saurin  did  not  attempt  to  refute  it.  He  had  since  died  ; and 
now,  at  his  son's  suggestion,  this  energetic  Voltaire  must  needs 
unearth  the  whole  story,  and  with  a very  rash  good-nature, 
set  to  work  to  prove  that  that  letter  to  Gonon  was  nothing  but 
a forgery  after  all.  He  obtained  a certificate  from  three  of  the 
Lausanne  ministers  who  had  been  principally  concerned  in  the 
affair,  declaring  that  they  had  never  seen  the  original.  This 
certificate  Voltaire  put  into  the  second  edition  of  his  ‘ Essay  on 
the  Manners  and  Mind  of  Nations.' 

But  in  this  October  of  1758,  some  impertinent  anonymous 
person  reproduces  the  whole  letter  from  Saurin  to  Gonon  in 
another  Swiss  newspaper,  and  positively  dares  to  doubt  the 
authenticity  of  Voltaire's  certificate  from  the  three  pastors. 

On  November  15  M.  de  Voltaire  sits  down  and  writes  ‘ A 
Refutation  of  an  Anonymous  Article,'  wherein  he  dwells  on  the 
useless  danger  and  cruelty  to  an  innocent  family  of  attempting 
to  convict  their  dead  father  of  heinous  crime. 

The  impertinent  unknown  (who  turns  out  to  be  a pastor, 
Lerveche,  who  had  long  objected  to  Voltaire's  theatricals  at 
Mon  Repos)  writes  a ‘ Reply  ’ to  the  refutation. 

Then  who  should  appear  on  the  scene  but  Grasset,  the 
publisher,  and  Voltaire’s  enemy  in  the  latest  ‘Pucelle'  fracas. 
Grasset  reprints  the  whole  correspondence,  and  adds  thereto 
Voltaire's  ‘Defence  of  Lord  Bolingbroke,'  and  other  little 
brochures  from  his  pen  most  likely  to  give  offence.  The  whole 
he  calls  ‘ The  Literary  War  or  Selected  Pieces  of  M.  de  V .' 

Literary  War  indeed ! says  M.  de  V ; a literary  libel ! 

And  do  you  know  who  this  Grasset  is  ? A scoundrel,  a cheat,  a 
common  criminal ! M.  de  V , in  short,  not  only  loses  his 


JEt.  64] 


‘ THE  LITEEAEY  WAE’ 


325 


temper,  but  seems  for  the  moment  to  lose  sight  of  the  Saurin 
cause,  and  to  devote  all  his  energies  to  getting  Grasset  punished. 
He  appeals  to  all  the  local  authorities.  He  ‘knocks  at  every 
door,’  and  continues  to  knock  till  all  are  opened.  He  is  once 
more  his  own  angry,  spry,  busy  little  fighting  self.  Peaceful 
landowner  and  householder — all  that  is  forgotten.  Behold  again 
the  restless  and  terrible  little  enemy  who  fought  Desfontaines. 

Most  people  listened  to  him — and  sympathised,  if  not  for  his 
rage  with  Grasset,  at  least  for  his  zeal  for  the  Saurins.  There 
was  but  one  man  who  threw  on  his  enthusiasm  the  cold  water  of 
irony : and  that  was  Haller,  the  great  Swiss  genius,  savant , 
philosopher,  linguist,  botanist,  poet,  philologist.  Until  Voltaire 
settled  at  Delices,  Haller  had  been  the  lion  of  the  neighbourhood. 
Now  he  was  only  a lion.  The  situation  hardly  needs  further 
explanation.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  Haller  was  as  firm  a Christian 
as  Voltaire  was  a Deist : and  that  Haller  had  been  a rather 
sarcastic  spectator  of  M.  de  Voltaire’s  theatricals.  All  generous 
admiration  was  on  the  side  of  Voltaire,  who  always  had  plenty  to 
spare  for  real  talent  such  as  Haller’s. 

When  Haller  returned  a very  cool  answer  to  Voltaire’s  warm 
pleadings  for  the  Saurins  and  suggested  that  to  concern  himself 
in  so  small  a matter  was  beneath  a great  man’s  greatness,  Voltaire 
waited  a judicious  ten  days,  and  returned  a mild  and  pleading 
answer. 

To  be  beneath  one’s  greatness  to  put  wrong,  right,  and  to 
clear  a dead  man’s  honour ! Haller  could  have  known  the  Voltaire 
who  was  to  avenge  Calas,  very  little.  The  correspondence  con- 
tinued. Haller  was  not  a little  stiff-necked  and  difficult : and 
Voltaire  at  once  persistent  and  impulsive.  Then  Haller  published 
the  letters — in  which  he  fancied  he  himself  played  a beau  role — 
and  made  an  enemy,  though  a very  generous  enemy,  of  Voltaire, 
for  ever. 

Grimm  records  how  Voltaire  one  day  asked  an  English  visitor 
at  Ferney,  from  whence  he  had  come. 

‘ From  Mr.  Haller’s.’ 

‘He  is  a great  man,’  cried  Voltaire,  ‘a  great  poet,  a great 
naturalist,  a great  philosopher — almost  a universal  genius  in  fact.’ 

‘ What  you  say,  Sir,  is  the  more  admirable,’  replied  the  Eng- 
lishman, ‘because  Mr.  Haller  does  not  do  you  the  same  justice.’ 


326 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTA  IB  E 


[1758 


‘ Ah  ! * said  Voltaire,  ‘ perhaps  we  are  both  mistaken.* 

A like  interview  is  also  described  as  taking  place  between 
Voltaire  and  Casanova  in  1760.  Casanova  stayed  with  Haller 
before  he  went  to  visit  Voltaire ; and  on  leaving  his  first  host 
observed  how  much  he  was  looking  forward  to  becoming  acquainted 
with  his  second. 

‘ Ah ! * replied  Haller,  ‘ many  persons,  contrary  to  physical 
laws,  have  found  M.  de  Voltaire  greater  when  seen  at  a distance.* 

Voltaire  had  presently  the  satisfaction  of  hearing  that  the 
sale  of  4 The  Literary  War  * was  prohibited,  and  of  seeing  Grasset 
severely  censured  ; though  he  would  have  liked  better  to  see  him 
banished. 

The  Saurin-Grasset-Haller  affair  had  one  important  influence 
upon  Voltaire.  It  disgusted  him  with  Lausanne. 

In  this  autumn  of  1758  Voltaire  wrote  to  a very  old  friend, 
King  Stanislas,  saying  that  he  had  fifty  thousand  francs  which 
he  should  like  to  invest  in  an  estate  in  Lorraine — that  he  might 
not  die  on  the  borders  of  Lake  Leman.  Cautious  Stanislas  con- 
sulted the  French  Government.  Would  this  meet  its  views? 
Choiseul,  representing  it,  as  Bernis’  successor,  replied,  ‘ You  know 
Voltaire  well  enough  to  decide  for  yourself.* 

So  on  some  date,  not  before  November  20,  1758,  Bettinelli — 
Italian,  Jesuit,  poet,  and  literary  man — arrived  at  Delices  as  the 
envoy  of  Stanislas,  sent  to  accept  the  proposed  investment  and 
tell  Voltaire  how  delighted  Stanislas  would  be  to  have  him  as  a 
neighbour. 

Voltaire  was  in  the  garden,  gardening,  when  Bettinelli  came, 
and  presented  an  extraordinary  appearance  in  a long  pelisse,  a 
black  velvet  cap,  and  a peruke  which  covered  almost  all  his  face 
except  the  nose  and  chin,  which  by  now  nearly  met.  He  had 
a stick  in  his  hand  which  had  a weeding  fork  at  one  end  and  a 
pruning  hook  at  the  other ; and  observed,  when  he  saw  Bettinelli, 
that  his  crop  from  his  garden  was  much  more  abundant  ‘ than 
from  that  I sow  in  my  books  for  the  good  of  mankind.’ 

The  pair  talked  on  all  kinds  of  subjects.  Bettinelli,  who  was 
not  a little  afraid  of  Voltaire’s  cynic  wit,  nervously  remarked  the 
brilliant  flash  of  the  eyes  and  the  sarcastic,  mobile  lips.  He 
thought  his  host  spoke  slowly  because  he  was  preparing  some- 
thing caustic  to  say  next ; but  the  truth  was  the  host  had  already 


Mt.  64]  PURCHASE  OF  FERNEY  AND  TOURNEY 


327 


lost  most  of  his  teeth  and  spoke  slowly  in  order  to  be  understood. 
The  pair  discussed  all  kinds  of  subjects — Italy,  the  Inquisition, 
slavery,  Tasso,  Ariosto,  Tronchin,  Bettinelli’s  poetry,  and  the 
famous  book  ‘On  the  Mind,’  which  Voltaire  sharply  criticised ; 
and  whose  author,  Helvetius,  he  summed  up  ‘as  a fool  who 
wanted  to  be  a philosopher  with  courtiers  and  a courtier  with 
philosophers.’ 

They  spoke  of  Madame  du  Chatelet.  In  Voltaire’s  rooms 
were  several  pictures  of  the  dead  woman.  ‘ Here  is  my  immortal 
Emilie,’  he  said.  Bettinelli  records  that  she  was  the  only  person 
of  whom  he  heard  Voltaire  speak  with  an  unchanging  admiration 
and  enthusiasm.  Before  Bettinelli  left  he  had  a little  interview 
with  Dr.  Tronchin,  who  congratulated  him  on  having  found 
Voltaire  in  a mood  unusually  serene  and  equable.  In  fact,  the 
visit  had  been  wholly  a success — but  for  one  thing.  When 
Bettinelli  handed  Voltaire  Stanislas’s  acceptance  of  his  proposal 
to  live  in  Lorraine,  Voltaire  took  it,  saying  that  he  had  just 
bought  a little  estate  near  Delices,  where  he  intended  to  live  out 
the  rest  of  his  life.  On  November  18  Voltaire  had  dated  his  first 
letter  from  Ferney.  Bettinelli  was  too  late. 

Since  the  middle  of  this  September  1758  Voltaire  had  been 
busy  negotiating  with  a M.  de  Boisy  for  the  purchase  of  Ferney 
— formerly  spelt  Fernex — and  with  a President  de  Brosses  for 
the  life  lease  of  Tourney  or  Tournay. 

There  were  reasons  which  made  both  estates  peculiarly  suit- 
able to  a Voltaire.  Ferney  was  in  France,  in  Burgundy,  in  the 
district  of  Gex ; but  it  was  also  on  the  frontier  of  Switzerland, 
only  three  and  a half  miles  from  Geneva.  Here  one  could  laugh 
at  those  straitlaced  Genevans  as  freely  as  if  the  three  miles  were 
three  hundred  ; and  if  one  offended  France,  which  was  only 
a question  of  time,  what  more  simple  than  to  drive  into  Geneva  ? 
Then,  too,  Ferney,  lying  on  the  north  shore  of  Lake  Leman, 
almost  joined  the  Delices.  Voltaire  at  first  thought  it  would  be 
a sort  of  supplement  to  his  first  Swiss  home.  But,  as  all  the 
world  knows,  Ferney  soon  supplanted  Delices  in  its  master’s 
affections,  and  became  the  literary  capital  of  Europe. 

There  were  equally  strong  reasons  for  buying  Tourney.  It 
was  in  France,  in  Burgundy,  as  Ferney  was  ; and  it  was  under 
the  direction  of  a foreign  prelate,  the  Bishop  of  Annecy.  It  was 


328 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1758 


on  the  very  frontier  of  the  Swiss  canton  of  Berne ; and  at  the 
very  gates  of  that  rich,  powerful,  intellectual  Geneva,  and  yet 
entirely  independent  of  its  prim  Calvinistic  laws.  From  Tourney 
one  could  thus  ‘ tease  Geneva  and  caress  Paris ; brave  orders  and 
lettres  de  cachet ; have  one’s  works  printed  without  the  King’s 
permission,  and  get  away  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  from  all 
prosecutions.’  Admirable  for  a Voltaire,  this.  Then,  too,  if 
Ferney  was  a supplement  to  Delices — Tourney  was  a prolongation 
of  Ferney.  Add  to  this,  with  the  life  lease  of  Tourney  went  the 
title  of  Lord  and  Count  of  Tourney.  Was  not  this  something 
to  the  man  who  clung  so  tightly  to  the  empty  honour  of  Gentle- 
man-in-Ordinary  ? It  was  very  much.  Voltaire  took  an 
enormous  pleasure  in  calling  the  attention  of  his  correspondents 
to  his  new  designation  ; and  presently  signed  himself,  with 
a solemn  pride  and  joy,  ‘ Gentleman-in- Ordinary  to  the  King 
of  France  and  Count  of  Tourney.’  If  Tourney  was  nothing  in 
the  world  but  a tumbledown  old  country  house  with  a ruined 
farm  attached  to  it — what  difference  did  that  make  ? What  was 
a Gentleman-in-Ordinary  ? An  exile  from  France  the  French 
King  would  have  none  of.  The  same  sort  of  pleasure  which  he 
received  from  fine  clothes  was  conveyed  to  Voltaire  by  fine  titles. 
The  characteristic  is  not  a grand  or  ennobling  one  ; but  it  is 
delightfully  human. 

By  September,  then,  he  had  these  two  estates  in  view — 
‘ Tourney  for  the  title,  and  Ferney  for  the  land  : Ferney  for 
a perpetuity,  and  Tourney  only  for  life.’  There  was  not  much 
trouble  with  M.  de  Boisy  over  Ferney.  It  was  bought  for  24,000 
ecus  in  the  name  of  Madame  Denis,  who  was  to  inherit  it  after 
her  uncle’s  death.  The  contract  for  the  purchase  was  not  actually 
signed  until  February  9,  1759 ; but  in  the  middle  of  September 
1758  Voltaire  had  made  a kind  of  state  entrance  into  the  parish, 
accompanied  by  Madame  Denis.  Madame  Denis  was  in  her  very 
best  clothes,  with  all  the  diamonds  the  menage  Voltaire  could 
produce.  As  for  Uncle  Voltaire  himself,  he,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  the  weather  was  still  very  warm,  enjoyed  himself  vastly  in 
crimson  velvet  trimmed  with  ermine.  The  pair  drove  in  the 
smartest  carriage,  and  attended  High  Mass — 1 droned  out — false  ’ 
— at  the  parish  church,  during  which  the  enthusiastic  future 
tenants  of  the  proprietor  of  Ferney  thumped  on  tin  boxes  to 


JEt.  64]  PURCHASE  OF  FERNEY  AND  TOURNEY 


329 


represent  a welcome  of  cannon  ! That  little,  lively,  black-eyed 
Frenchwoman,  Madame  d’Epinay,  has  left  a vivacious  record  of 
the  day.  If  she  saw  it  as  comic,  Voltaire  did  not.  Once  more 
he  justified  Tronchin’s  appellation  for  him,  ‘an  old  baby,’  and 
enjoyed  himself  like  a schoolboy. 

But  if  the  Ferney  negotiations  had  been  simple,  not  so  the 
Tourney. 

President  de  Brosses  and  Voltaire  were  soon  engaged  in  a vast 
correspondence.  A whole  book  has  been  written  on  their  relations 
with  each  other.  There  is  no  doubt  that  over  Tourney  Voltaire 
showed  a great  deal  of  that  spirit  which  people  call  business 
capacity  in  themselves  and  meanness  in  others. 

On  September  9 he  made  an  offer  to  de  Brosses  for  the  life 
lease  of  the  little  estate.  De  Brosses  said  the  offer  was  in- 
sufficient. After  a good  deal  of  trouble  and  haggling  over  small 
items  on  both  sides,  Voltaire  finally  bought  the  life  lease  of 
Tourney  (with  all  seigneurial  rights  and  that  delightful  title 
included)  for  85,600  livres.  He  undertook  to  make  certain 
alterations  and  repairs.  A herd  of  cattle  was  included  in  his 
purchase.  Although  he  was  not  to  enter  into  his  life  tenancy 
until  February  22,  1759,  the  agreement  is  dated  December  11, 
1758;  and  on  December  24  he  made  his  state  entrance  into 
Tourney,  as  three  months  before  he  had  into  Ferney. 

The  second  occasion  was  much  the  more  magnificent  of  the 
two.  Madame  de  Fontaine  was  with  him  this  time,  as  well  as 
Madame  Denis.  Both  were  in  diamonds.  Here,  too,  was  their 
brother  Mignot,  the  abbe ; also  tout  pare.  The  village  girls 
handed  the  ladies  baskets  of  flowers  and  oranges.  The  artillery 
had  come  from  Geneva,  so  there  was  no  need  to  thump  upon  tin 
boxes.  There  were  drums,  fifes,  cannon : all  the  music  of 
flattery.  The  spectators  were  not  only  peasants,  as  they  had 
been  at  Ferney,  but  all  the  polite  persons  of  the  neighbourhood. 
There  was  a splendid  banquet,  given  by  the  outgoing  tenant  of 
Tourney,  and  served  by  the  innkeeper  of  a neighbouring  village. 
The  cure  made  M.  de  Voltaire  a beautiful  address.  M.  de  Voltaire 
was  wholly  delighted — ‘ very  gay  and  content/  He  answered 
quite  en  grand  seigneur , and  as  was  expected  of  him,  ‘ Ask  any- 
thing you  like  for  the  good  of  your  parish  and  I will  give  it  you.’ 
Lord  and  Count  of  Tourney  ! This  most  impressionable  of  men 


330 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1758-59 


lived  up  to  the  part  immediately.  He  wrote  an  enthusiastic 
account  of  the  proceedings  to  de  Brosses  on  the  very  same  day, 
when  he  was  back  again  at  Delices.  ‘ I made  my  entrance  like 
Sancho  Panza  into  his  island.  Only  his  paunch  was  wanting  to 
me.’  ‘ My  subjects  frightened  my  horses  with  musketry  and 
torpedoes/  The  banquet  (served  by  the  native  innkeeper)  ‘was 
a magnificent  repast  in  the  style  of  those  of  Horace  and  Boileau.’ 
In  short,  the  Lord  of  Tourney  saw  his  new  estates  all  couleur  de 
rose , or  almost  all.  It  is  infinitely  characteristic  that  in  this 
very  letter  he  went  on  to  plead  for  the  restitution  of  certain 
tithes  to  the  poor  of  Ferney,  which  they  had  enjoyed  for  a century, 
and  of  which  Ancian,  the  cure  of  the  neighbouring  parish  of 
Moens,  ‘ the  most  abominable  pettifogger  in  the  district/  had 
deprived  them,  further  ‘ putting  them  to  fifteen  hundred  francs 
of  law  expenses  before  they  knew  it.’  Voltaire  had  also  appealed 
passionately  to  the  Bishop  of  Annecy ; and  did  at  last  obtain  his 
suit,  but  only  after  he  had  paid  a very  large  sum  out  of  his  own 
pocket. 

He  wrote  also  to  Theriot  that  evening — tired,  no  doubt,  but 
too  charmed  to  remember  it.  ‘ You  are  mistaken,  my  old  friend  ; 
I have  four  paws  instead  of  two.  One  paw  in  Lausanne,  in 
a very  pretty  house  for  the  winter  ; one  paw  at  Delices,  near 
Geneva,  where  good  company  comes  to  see  me — those  are  the 
front  paws.  The  back  are  at  Ferney,  and  in  the  county  ’ — 
a county,  if  you  please,  and  not  merely  an  estate — ‘ of  Tourney.’ 

He  went  on  to  point  out  the  advantages  of  Ferney — how  there 
was  plenty  of  land  and  wood  for  the  rebuilding  operations  he 
already  had  in  hand ; how  he  could  get  marble  by  the  lake  ; how 
the  extensive  estates  would  really  not  be  so  costly  after  all.  For 
himself,  he  would  like  to  live  on  them  quite  simply.  But  my 
niece,  you  know — that  victim  of  Frankfort — she  merits  luxury 
and  indulgences.  He  had  already  set  the  peasants  to  work  to 
mend  the  neglected  roads  about  Ferney ; so  that  in  a month  or 
two  he  was  able  to  say  truthfully  that  they  had  earned  more  in 
that  time  than  formerly  they  had  been  able  to  do  in  a year.  He 
had  already  chartered  more  than  a hundred  workmen,  that  his  re- 
building and  gardening  operations  might  be  put  in  hand  at  once. 

The  year  closed  full  of  the  happiest  expectations.  Despite 
gala  entrances  to  new  estates,  Madame  Denis,  indeed,  complained 


Mt.  64-65]  PURCHASE  OF  FERNEY  AND  TOURNEY  331 


that  the  winter  of  1758-59  was  dull.  It  was  all  spent  at  Delices  : 
as  being  more  out  of  the  way  of  the  troubling  of  Grassets  and 
Hallers,  than  Monrion.  True,  plenty  of  visitors  came  from 
Lausanne  ; but  there  were  not  many  who  came  to  sleep  and  stay. 
True,  too,  the  Delices  troupe  had  privately  acted  (‘  the  only 
pleasure  I have  in  this  country,5  Madame  Denis  wrote  dismally) 
‘ Amenaide,5  which  was  to  have  its  name  changed  to  ‘ Tancred  5 
later  ; and  as  4 Tancred 5 become  immortal.  But  Madame  Denis 
apparently  was  suffering  from  an  indigestion  which  Tronchin 
could  not  cure,  for  she  spoke  slightingly  of  that  good  physician, 
and  discontentedly  of  life  in  general.  Uncle  Voltaire  was  so 
absurdly  busy  ! Trying  to  do  a hundred  things  at  once,  and 
invincibly  obstinate.  ‘It  is  the  only  sign  of  old  age  he  has.5 
‘If  I were  not  so  sensitive  I should  be  very  happy.5  When  a 
lady  complains  she  is  sensitive,  she  always  means  that  she  is 
cross  and  offended.  Uncle  Voltaire  had  shown  his  invincible 
obstinacy  by  persisting  in  going  on  with  that  Saurin  controversy 
when  his  niece  thought  he  had  very  much  better  leave  it  alone. 

Then,  too,  he  was  getting  more  and  more  engrossed  every  day 
with  pulling  down  and  putting  up,  with  barns,  farms,  oxen, 
sheep,  horses  ; and  ‘ adored  the  country  even  in  winter,5  while 
Louise,  as  he  said  himself,  was  ‘ very  difficult  to  reduce  to  the 
role  of  Ceres,  of  Pomona,  and  of  Flora,  and  would  much  rather 
have  been  Thalia  in  Paris.5  But  when  her  uncle  found  Tourney 
and  Ferney,  he  found  a better  life  than  he  had  ever  known  ; and 
the  dearest  and  Grossest  of  nieces  would  not  make  him  relinquish 
it.  The  year  1759  was  still  new-born  when  he  was  writing,  not 
once  but  many  times,  that  he  was  wonderfully  well  and  happy, 
stronger  and  better  than  he  had  ever  been ; that  he  had  only 
really  lived  since  the  day  he  chose  his  retreat ; that  he  was  so 
infinitely  content  6 that  if  I dared  I should  think  myself  wise.5 

‘ Such  is  my  life,  Madame,  tranquil  and  occupied,  full  and 
philosophic.5  ‘ I love  to  plant,  I love  to  build,  and  so  satisfy  the 
only  tastes  which  gratify  old  age.5 

‘ This  kind  of  life  makes  one  want  to  live.5  ‘ Property  in 
paper  depends  upon  fortune  ; property  in  land  depends  only  upon 
God.5 

‘ To  have  found  the  secret  of  being  independent  in  France  is 
more  than  to  have  written  the  “Henriade.55  5 


332 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1759 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

FEENEY 

Feeney,  as  has  been  said,  stood  on  the  north  shore  of  Lake 
Leman,  in  the  district  of  Gex,  three  and  a half  miles  from 
Geneva  and  almost  joining  Delices.  The  village  to  which  it 
belonged,  also  called  Ferney,  was  really  nothing  but  a mean 
hamlet  with  forty  or  fifty  miserable  inhabitants,  ‘devoured  by 
poverty,  scurvy,  and  tax-gatherers.’  A very  ugly  little  church 
stood  much  too  near  the  house. 

That  house,  when  Voltaire  bought  it,  was  very  old,  tumble- 
down,  and  totally  inadequate  to  his  requirements.  The  entrance 
was  through  two  towers  connected  by  a drawbridge.  If  it  was 
picturesque,  it  was  certainly  not  comfortable.  When  Voltaire 
had  rebuilt  it,  it  was  certainly  comfortable,  and  decidedly  un- 
picturesque. 

He  had  begun  that  rebuilding  three  months  before  the  deed 
of  purchase  was  signed.  By  December  6,  1758,  he  had  twenty 
masons  at  work.  By  the  24th,  what  he  might  well  have  cynically 
called  his  optimism  led  him  to  think  it 4 a pretty  house  enough.* 
By  June  1759  it  was  4 a charming  chateau  in  the  Italian  style.’ 

By  July  it  was  4 of  the  Doric  order.  It  will  last  a thousand 
years.’ 

By  November  it  was  4 a piece  of  architecture  which  would 
have  admirers  even  in  Italy.’  While  by  the  March  of  1761  it 
had  grown — at  any  rate  in  its  master’s  fancy — into  4 a superb 
chateau.’ 

There  have  not  been  wanting  to  Voltaire  enemies  to  argue 
persistently  and  vociferously  that  Ferney  was  not  at  all  what  he 
represented  it ; and  that  all  his  geese  were  swans.  They  were. 
Ferney  at  its  best  and  completest  was  never  anything  but  a plain, 
sensible,  commodious  country  house.  It  had  neither  wings  nor 


CHATEAU  OF  FERNEY. 


^Et.  65] 


FERNEY 


333 


decoration ; nor  any  architectural  merit,  except  that  its  ugliness 
was  simple  and  not  elaborate.  Voltaire  was  his  own  architect ; 
and  owned  quite  frankly  that  he  knew  nothing  at  all  about 
architecture.  The  man  who  had  travelled  through  Holland, 
Belgium,  and  Prussia  without  once  stepping  out  of  his  post-chaise 
to  look  at  a famous  picture,  or  an  immortal  sculpture,  or  the 
‘ frozen  music  ’ of  a grand  cathedral,  had  as  little  feeling  for  art 
as  for  Nature. 

He  thought  Ferney  a superb  chateau  because  it  was  his 
chateau.  Just  as  he  was  devoted  to  flowers  and  gardens,  when 
they  were  his  flowers  and  his  gardens. 

It  is  certainly  not  the  best  way  of  loving  art  or  Nature,  but 
it  is  the  only  way  of  many  persons  besides  Voltaire.  And,  after 
all,  that  comfortable  feeling  of  landed  proprietorship,  that  honest 
pride  in  his  cows  and  his  sheep,  his  bees  and  his  silkworms,  sits 
pleasantly  enough  on  this  withered  cynic  of  sixty-five  ; and  makes 
him  at  once  more  human,  more  sympathetic — the  same  flesh  and 
blood  as  the  simple  and  ordinary. 

He  had,  as  he  said,  plenty  of  wood  and  stone  for  his  building 
operations  on  the  premises — 1 oak  enough  to  be  useful  to  our 
navy,  if  we  had  one  ’ ; and  stone,  which  the  architect  thought 
very  good,  and  which  turned  out  to  be  very  bad.  He  said  gaily 
that  when  the  house  was  finished  he  should  write  on  the  wall 
‘ Voltaire  fecit  ’ ; and  that  posterity  would  take  him  for  a famous 
architect.  As  for  that  marble  of  which  he  had  talked  largely  as 
being  brought  up  by  the  lake,  the  man  who  declared  that  he  pre- 
ferred a good  English  book  to  a hundred  thousand  pillars  of  it, 
did  not  trouble  to  obtain  much  or  to  make  an  elaborate  use  of 
what  he  did  obtain.  He  wanted  the  house  ‘ agreeable  and  useful,' 
and  he  had  it.  There  was  a fine  view  from  it ; though  not  so 
fine  as  it  might  have  been,  for  it  faced  the  high  road.  Still,  as  its 
happy  master  said,  it  was  situated  in  the  most  smiling  country 
in  Europe  ; at  its  feet  the  lake  gleamed  and  sparkled ; and 
beyond  the  warm  and  gorgeous  luxuriance  of  its  perfect  gardens 
could  be  seen,  in  dazzling  contrast,  the  eternal  snows  of  Mont 
Blanc. 

When  the  rebuilding  was  finished  the  house  was,  looked 
at  without  prejudice,  the  well-appointed  home  of  a well-to-do 
bourgeois  gentilhomme — with  an  unusual  love  for  literature. 


334 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


1759 


There  was  an  ordinary  hall  with  a stone  staircase  on  the  left 
which  led  up  to  the  fourteen  guest-rooms,  all  comfortably  fur- 
nished, said  one  of  those  guests,  who  was  an  Englishman  and 
had  been  used  to  solid  English  comfort  at  home.  Here  and 
there  were  some  good  pictures — or  copies  of  good  pictures — 
copies,  most  likely,  since  Voltaire,  hardly  knowing  the  difference, 
would  be  apt  to  reflect  that  a copy  would  do  as  well  as  an  original, 
and  be  much  cheaper.  A Venus  after  Paul  Veronese  and  a Flora 
after  Guido  Reni,  some  of  the  visitors  declared  genuine  ; and 
some  as  hotly  pronounced  spurious.  Wagniere,  that  Genevan 
boy  who  lived  to  write  memoirs  like  the  other  secretaries,  stated 
that  his  master  had  about  twenty  valuable  pictures  in  all ; and 
some  good  busts.  There  were  various  family  portraits  about  the 
house  : one  of  Madame  Denis  ; one  of  Voltaire’s  young  mother  ; 
and,  soon,  a likeness  of  Madame  de  Pompadour  painted  by  herself, 
and  by  herself  given  to  Voltaire.  In  Madame  Denis’s  room 
presently  there  was  a portrait  of  Catherine,  Empress  of  Russia, 
embroidered  in  silk  ; and  a marble  statue  of  Voltaire.  There  was 
a copy  of  this  statue,  or  his  bust  in  plaster,  in  almost  every  room 
in  the  house. 

The  library  was  simple,  and,  for  Voltaire,  small.  Dr.  Burney, 
the  father  of  Fanny,  who  saw  it  in  1770,  describes  it  as  4 not  very 
large  but  well  filled,’  and  says  it  contained  4 a whole-length 
figure  in  marble  ’ of  its  master  4 recumbent,  in  one  of  the 
windows.’  At  Voltaire’s  death  it  contained  only  6,210  volumes. 
But  almost  every  one  had  on  its  margin  copious  notes  in  that 
fine,  neat  little  handwriting.  Six  thousand  volumes  annotated 
by  a Voltaire  ! His  sarcasm  should  have  made  the  dullest  ones 
amusing ; and  his  relentless  logic  the  obscurest  ones  clear. 
There  were  a great  many  volumes  of  history  and  theology ; 
dictionaries  in  every  language  ; all  the  Italian  poets  ; and  all  the 
English  philosophers.  The  Comte  de  Maistre,  who  saw  this 
library  after  Voltaire’s  death  when  it  had  been  bought  by  Catherine 
the  Great,  wondered  at  the  4 extreme  mediocrity  ’ of  the  books. 
By  this  he  explained  himself  to  mean  that  there  were  no  rare  old 
editions  and  no  sumptuous  bindings,  which  the  Count  took  as  a 
sign  that  Voltaire  was  4 a stranger  to  all  profound  literature.’  It 
w as  a sign  that  Voltaire  read  to  act ; that  books  were  his  tools, 
not  his  ornaments  ; that  he  loved  literature,  not  as  a sensuous 


Mt.  65] 


FERNEY 


335 


delight,  but  as  the  lever  that  was  to  turn  the  world.  ‘ A few  books, 
very  much  marked.’  That  library  was  infinitely  characteristic  of 
the  man  who  was  doer,  not  dreamer  ; of  the  mind  to  which  every 
poet,  every  philosopher,  every  scientist  acted  as  a spur  to  new 
practical  effort ; of  the  man  who  was  to  go  down  the  ages  not  as 
playwright,  or  verse-maker,  but  as  he  who  ‘ conquered  the  intellect 
of  France,  for  the  Revolution.’ 

The  salle  d manger  was  distinguished  only  by  a most  extra- 
ordinary and  very  bad  allegorical  picture,  called  4 The  Temple  of 
Memory,’  in  which  a Glory,  with  her  hair  dressed  much  a la 
mode , was  presenting  Voltaire  (who  was  surrounded  with  a halo 
like  a saint)  to  the  God  of  Poetry  who  was  getting  out  of  his 
chariot  with  a crown  in  his  hand.  On  one  side  of  the  picture 
appeared  busts  of  Euripides,  Sophocles,  Racine,  Corneille,  and 
other  great  men ; on  the  opposite  side  were  caricatures  of  Freron 
and  Desfontaines,  who  were  being  most  satisfactorily  kicked  by 
Furies.  Voltaire  laughed  at,  and  enjoyed  immensely,  this  part 
of  the  picture  while  he  was  at  meals.  The  artist  was  Alix,  a 
native  of  Ferney,  and  soon  an  habitue  at  the  chateau.  It  was 
fortunate  for  him  that  Voltaire  was  so  much  better  a friend  than 
he  was  a judge  of  art. 

His  bedroom  and  salon  were  both  small  rooms.  The  salon, 
entered  by  folding  doors,  contained  the  master’s  bust  above  the 
stove,  six  or  seven  pictures,  ‘ more  or  less  good,’  a portrait  of 
Madame  du  Chatelet,  and  casts  of  Newton  and  Locke.  One  of 
the  pictures,  after  Boucher,  represented  a hunting  scene.  There 
were  ten  tapestry  armchairs,  and  a table  of  very  common 
varnished  marble.  French  windows  and  a glass  door  led  into 
the  garden. 

Voltaire’s  bedroom  was  principally  distinguished  by  a neat- 
ness, cleanness,  and  simplicity  natural  to  him,  but  very  unusual 
in  his  day.  The  roughly  carved  deal  bedstead  one  visitor  regret- 
fully regarded  as  ‘almost  mean.’  It  was  the  fashion  then  to 
spend  the  night  in  what  looked  like  a large  heavily  curtained 
coffin.  Voltaire — to  the  melancholy  vexation  of  the  fashionable 
— seems  to  have  dispensed  with  most  of  the  curtains,  but  could 
not  escape  a huge  baldachino  over  his  head.  Inside  it,  hung  a 
very  bad  pastel  portrait  of  Lekain ; and  a candelabra  containing 
three  wax  candles,  so  that  he  could  see  to  read.  On  either  side 


336 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIEE 


[1759 


of  the  bed  hung  portraits  of  Frederick  the  Great,  of  Voltaire 
himself,  and  of  Madame  du  Chatelet.  Placed  between  the  door 
and  the  only  window  were  five  or  six  other  engraved  portraits,  all 
in  very  simple  black  frames.  The  bed  hangings  and  the  four 
armchairs  were  upholstered  alike  in  pale  blue  damask. 

The  room  contained  five  desks.  On  each  were  notes  for  the 
various  subjects  on  which  the  author  was  working  : this  desk 
had  notes  for  a play ; this,  for  a treatise  on  philosophy ; a third 
for  a brochure  on  science  ; and  so  on.  All  were  exquisitely  neat 
and  orderly ; every  paper  in  its  right  place.  The  writing-chair 
was  of  cane,  with  a cover  on  it  to  match  the  bed  curtains.  Later 
on,  Voltaire  had  a second  writing-chair  made,  which  he  used 
much  in  the  last  few  years  of  his  life : one  of  its  arms  formed 
a desk,  and  the  other  a little  table  with  drawers  ; and  both  were 
revolving. 

Just  below  the  master’s  bedroom  was  Wagniere’s,  so  that  if 
Voltaire  knocked  on  the  floor  during  the  night  the  servant  could 
hear  him.  That  he  did  so  knock,  pretty  often,  rests  on  the  rueful 
testimony  of  Wagniere  himself. 

Quite  close  to  the  house  stood  a little  marble  bathroom  with 
hot  and  cold  water  laid  on.  It  was  a very  unusual  luxury  in 
those  times,  and  considered  a highly  unnecessary  one.  It  is 
pleasant  to  a century  much  more  particular  in  such  matters  than 
the  eighteenth  to  reflect  that  Voltaire  was  always  personally 
cleanly  and  tidy  to  an  extent  which  his  contemporaries  considered 
ridiculous.  That  fine  and  dirty  age  could  hardly  forgive  his 
insisting  on  his  ancient  perukes  and  queer  old  gardening  clothes 
being  kept  as  trim  and  well  brushed  as  if  they  were  new  and 
grand.  His  passion  for  soap  and  water  was  one  of  the  com- 
plaints his  enemies  in  Prussia  had  brought  against  him. 
Wagniere  records  that  his  master  was  ‘ scrupulously  clean,’  and 
also  his  love  of  washing  his  eyes  in  pure  cold  water.  Doubtless 
the  habit  preserved  them,  in  spite  of  the  inordinate  amount  of 
work  they  had  to  do.  To  the  day  of  his  death  they  never  needed 
spectacles. 

Most  of  the  visitors  comment  on  the  well-kept  appearance  of 
the  house  ; though  one,  Lady  Craven,  Margravine  of  Anspach, 
said  the  salle  a manger  was  generally  dirty  and  the  servants’ 
liveries  soiled.  It  was  at  Ferney  as  it  had  been  at  Cirey.  The 


Mt.  65] 


FERNEY 


337 


master  was  particular,  but  the  mistress  was  not.  If  Madame  du 
Chatelet  had  been  engrossed  with  science,  Madame  Denis  was 
engrossed  with  amusement.  Her  extravagance  and  bad  house- 
hold management  in  that  respect  were  often  the  cause  of  dis- 
agreements between  her  uncle  and  herself.  And,  that  4 fat  pig, 
who  says  it  is  too  hot  to  write  a letter/  as  Voltaire  once  described 
his  niece  to  Madame  d’Epinay,  was  the  sort  of  person  who 
thought  no  trouble  too  great  for  pleasure,  but  any  trouble  too 
great  for  duty. 

It  is  significant  that  when  she  went  to  Paris  in  1768  her 
uncle  seized  the  opportunity  of  having  Ferney  thoroughly 
cleaned  from  top  to  bottom. 

It  is  said  that  when  he  caught  sight  of  cobwebs  by  the  pillars 
and  porticoes  of  the  house,  which  the  servants  had  neglected  to 
remove,  he  used  to  vigorously  flick  a whip,  crying  out,  ‘ A la 
chasse ! a la  chasse ! ’ and  the  whole  household,  including  the 
guests,  had  to  join  in  the  spider  hunt. 

He  had  in  his  daily  employ  sixty  or  seventy  persons,  and 
sometimes  more.  Five  servants  usually  waited  at  table,  of  whom 
three  were  in  livery.  Martin  Sherlock,  the  Englishman,  says 
that  the  dinner  consisted  of  two  courses  and  was  eaten  off  silver 
plates  with  the  host’s  coat  of  arms  on  them ; while  at  the  dessert 
the  spoons,  forks,  and  blades  of  the  knives  were  of  silver-gilt ; 
and  adds  that  no  strange  servant  was  ever  allowed  to  officiate  at 
meals.  Wagniere  records  how  two  of  the  household  having 
robbed  their  master,  the  police  got  wind  of  the  matter ; and 
Voltaire  bade  him  go  and  warn  the  delinquents  to  fly  imme- 
diately, ‘for  if  they  are  arrested  I shall  not  be  able  to  save 
them  from  hanging.’  He  also  sent  them  some  money  for  the 
journey.  It  is  pleasant  to  learn  that  the  hearts  of  the  culprits 
were  touched  by  this  generous  kindness,  and  that,  having  escaped, 
they  lived  honest  lives. 

It  was  a rule  at  Ferney  that  all  peasants  who  came  to  the 
house  should  have  a good  dinner  and  twenty-four  sous  given 
them  before  they  pursued  their  way. 

‘ Good  to  all  about  him/  was  the  Prince  de  Ligne’s  description 
of  Voltaire.  It  was  not  an  extravagant  one. 

If  the  house  at  Ferney  was  simple  and  comfortable  rather 
than  magnificent,  the  grounds  were  on  a far  more  elaborate  scale. 

z 


338 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1759 


There  was  enough  land  to  grow  wheat,  hay,  and  straw.  There 
were  poultry  yards  and  sheepfolds  ; an  orchard  watered  by  a 
stream ; meadows,  storehouses,  and  an  immense  barn  which 
stabled  fifty  cows  with  their  calves  and  served  as  a granary,  and 
of  which  its  master  was  intensely  proud. 

Then,  too,  there  were  farms  which  Voltaire  managed  himself, 
and  so  made  lucrative.  He  was  pleased  to  say,  with  a twinkle  in 
his  eye,  that  he  also  did  everything  in  the  garden — the  gardener 
was  4 si  bete.’  That  he  had  a field  which  was  always  called 
Voltaire’s  field,  because  he  cultivated  it  entirely  with  his  own 
hands,  is  certainly  true.  Before  long  he  had  four  or  five  hundred 
beehives  ; turkeys  and  silkworms ; and  a breeding  stable  for 
horses,  transferred  from  the  Delices.  He  was  not  a little 
delighted  when,  in  this  May  of  1759,  the  Marquis  de  Voyer, 
steward  of  King  Louis’  stables,  made  him  a present  of  a fine 
stallion.  As  if  he  had  not  hobbies  enough,  he  soon  became  an 
enthusiastic  tree-planter — begging  all  his  friends  to  follow  his 
example — and  sending  wagons  all  the  way  to  Lyons  for  loads  of 
young  trees  for  his  park. 

After  a while  that  park  stretched  in  three  miles  of  circuit 
round  the  house,  and  included  a splendid  avenue  of  oaks,  lindens, 
and  poplars.  In  the  garden  were  sunny  walls  for  peaches  ; vines, 
lawns,  and  flowers.  It  was  laid  out  with  a charming  imprevu 
and  irregularity,  most  unfashionable  in  that  formal  day.  Vol- 
taire had  always  a ‘tender  recollection  of  the  banks  of  the 
Thames,’  and  made  his  garden  as  English  as  he  could.  It  is 
indeed  melancholy  to  note  that  artificial  water  and  prim  terraces 
were  soon  introduced  to  spoil — though  their  master  thought  they 
improved — its  luxuriant  irregularity ; and  that  objects  like 
lightning  conductors,  and  fountains  presided  over  by  plaster 
nymphs,  were  not  considered  the  least  out  of  keeping  with 
Nature  by  their  lord  and  master.  Near  his  silkworm  house  a 
thick  linden-tree  with  overhanging  branches  formed  what  was 
called  Voltaire’s  study,  and  there  he  wrote  verses  ‘ for  recreation.’ 
Nature  certainly  never  inspired  any  of  them.  Now  and  again 
there  came,  it  is  true,  even  to  this  most  typical  son  of  the  most 
artificial  of  all  centuries,  as  he  cultivated  his  field,  or  pruned  and 
weeded  in  his  garden,  such  reflections  as  might  have  fallen  from 
the  lips  of  his  great  opposite,  Rousseau  : ‘ I have  only  done  one 


^Et.  65] 


FEENEY 


339 


sensible  thing  in  my  life — to  cultivate  the  ground.  He  who 
clears  a field  renders  a better  service  to  humankind  than  all  the 
scribblers  in  Europe.’ 

‘ You  have  done  a great  work  for  posterity,’  a friend  said  to 
him  one  day. 

‘ Yes,  Madame.  I have  planted  four  thousand  feet  of  trees  in 
my  park.’ 

No  more  incongruous  picture  could  be  painted  than  that  of 
this  ‘ withering  cynic,’  this  world-famous  hewer,  hacker,  and 
uprooter  in  his  old  grey  shoes  and  stockings,  a long  vest  to  his 
knees,  little  black  velvet  cap  and  great  drooping  peruke,  tran- 
quilly directing,  cultivating,  sowing,  ‘ planting  walnut  and  chest- 
nut trees  upon  which  I shall  never  see  walnuts  or  chestnuts,’ 
consoling  himself  for  the  toads  in  his  garden  by  the  reflection 
that  ‘ they  do  not  prevent  the  nightingales  from  singing  ’ : and 
prophesying  that  his  destiny  would  be  ‘ to  end  between  a seedlip, 
cows,  and  Genevans.’ 

For  the  time  this  country  life  was  his  element  not  the  less. 
He  wrote  that  it  was,  to  Madame  du  Deffand,  a dozen  times. 
True,  he  had  taken  to  it  late.  But  perhaps  always,  deep  down  in 
him,  undeveloped,  stifled  by  Paris  and  by  the  burning  needs  of 
humanity,  had  been  the  peaceful  primaeval  tastes.  Cirey  had 
roused  them.  Delices  had  nourished  them  : and  Ferney  and 
Tourney  confirmed  them. 

Tourney  had  given  its  master  a title,  but  at  first  it  gave 
him  nothing  else.  It  was  a county  pour  rire,  ‘ the  land  in 
a bad  state,’  ‘ a garden  where  there  was  nothing  but  snails  and 
moles,  vines  without  grapes,  fields  without  corn,  and  sheds 
without  cows,’  and  ‘a  house  in  ruins.’  Still,  the  land  could 
be  made  fertile ; and  the  house,  if  it  was  in  ruins,  boasted 
an  admirable  view,  and  was  but  ‘ a quarter  of  a league  ’ from 
Geneva. 

By  February  1759  fifty  workmen  were  putting  it  to  rights  ; 
and  by  November  the  Count  of  Tourney  could  say  that  he  had 
planted  hundreds  of  trees  in  the  garden,  and  used  more  powder 
(in  rock-blasting)  than  at  the  siege  of  a town.  Everything 
needed  repairing,  he  added — fields,  roads,  granaries,  wine-presses 
— and  everything  was  being  repaired. 

As  at  Ferney  and  Delices,  the  master  personally  supervised 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


340 


[1759 


every  detail ; and  so  made  his  farms,  his  nurseries,  his  bees,  his 
silkworms,  all  pay. 

In  the  house  at  Tourney  he  quickly  made  a theatre-room.  If 
some  of  the  guests  were  disposed  to  laugh  at  a stage  which  held 
nine  persons  in  a semicircle  with  difficulty,  and  to  think  the 
green  and  gold  decorations  tawdry,  Voltaire  adored  that  ‘ theatre 
of  Punchinello  ’ as  a child  adores  a new  toy.  ‘ A little  green  and 
gold  theatre,’  4 the  prettiest  and  smallest  possible  ’ — he  alludes  to 
it  in  his  letters  a hundred  times.  From  the  September  of  1760 
he  was  anxious  to  transfer  it  to  Ferney.  But  meanwhile  he  loved 
it  where  and  as  it  was.  Tourney  also  was  useful  to  provide 
accommodation  for  the  servants  of  the  innumerable  guests  who 
came  to  stay  at  Ferney. 

No  idea  of  Voltaire’s  life  there  could  be  given  without  men- 
tion of  that  incessant  stream  of  visitors  of  all  nations  and 
languages  which  flowed  through  it,  almost  without  pause  for 
twenty  years.  Half  the  genius — and  but  too  many  of  the  fools 
— of  Europe  came  to  worship  at  the  shrine  of  the  prophet  of  this 
literary  Mecca. 

As  prim  Geneva  shut  its  gates  at  nightfall,  everyone  who 
came  to  sup  with  M.  de  Voltaire  had  to  stay  all  night  in  his 
house.  Ferney  had  no  inn.  After  fourteen  years  of  his  life 
there,  Voltaire  might  well  say  that  he  had  been  the  hotelkeeper 
of  Europe.  He  told  Madame  du  Deffand,  as  early  as  1763,  that 
he  had  entertained  four  hundred  English  people,  of  whom  not 
one  ever  after  gave  him  a thought. 

Too  many  of  his  guests,  indeed,  were  not  merely  self-invited  : 
but  remained  at  Ferney  with  such  persistency  that  their  unhappy 
host  would  sometimes  retire  to  bed  and  say  he  was  dying,  to  get 
rid  of  them.  One  caller,  who  had  received  a message  to  this 
effect,  returned  the  next  day.  4 Tell  him  I am  dying  again.  And 
if  he  comes  any  more,  say  I am  dead  and  buried.’ 

Another  visitor,  when  told  Voltaire  was  ill,  shrewdly  replied 
that  he  was  a doctor  and  should  like  to  feel  his  pulse.  When 
Voltaire  sent  down  a message  to  say  he  was  dead,  the  visitor 
replied,  ‘ Then  I will  bury  him.  In  my  profession  I am  used  to 
burying  people.’  His  humour  appealed  to  Voltaire’s.  He  was 
admitted.  ‘ You  seem  to  take  me  for  some  curious  animal,’  said 
Voltaire. 


ifiT.  65] 


FERNEY 


341 


‘ Yes,  Monsieur,  for  the  Phoenix.’ 

‘ Very  well : the  charge  to  see  me  is  twelve  sous.’ 

‘ Here  are  twenty- four,’  said  the  visitor.  ‘ I will  come  again 
to-morrow.* 

He  did,  and  on  many  to-morrows  : and  was  received  as  a 
friend. 

But  all  the  importunate  were  not  so  clever,  and  their  fulsome 
flattery  was  odious  to  the  man  who  loved  it  daintily  dressed. 

‘ Sir,  when  I see  you,  I see  the  great  candle  that  lights  the 
world.* 

‘ Quick,  Madame  Denis,*  cried  Voltaire.  ‘ A pair  of  snuffers  ! ’ 

One  persistent  woman  tried  to  effect  an  entry  by  saying  that 
she  was  the  niece  of  Terrai,  the  last,  and  not  the  least  corrupt, 
of  Louis  XV.’s  finance  ministers. 

Voltaire  sent  out  a message.  ‘ Tell  her  I have  only  one  tooth 
left,  and  I am  keeping  that  for  her  uncle.* 

The  Abbe  Coyer,  on  his  arrival,  calmly  announced  that  he 
was  going  to  stay  six  weeks. 

‘ In  what  respect,  my  dear  Abbe,  are  you  unlike  “ Don 
Quixote**?  He  took  the  inns  for  chateaux,  and  you  take  the 
chateaux  for  inns.* 

Coyer  left  early  the  next  day. 

Still,  in  spite  of  such  rebuffs,  the  visitors  were  incessant. 

One  said  that  he  could  not  recollect  there  being  more  than 
sixty  to  eighty  people  at  supper  after  theatricals.  Voltaire  him- 
self said  there  were  constantly  fifty  to  a hundred. 

Many  visitors  stayed  for  weeks  ; many  for  months  ; some  for 
years. 

Madame  de  Fontaine,  with  her  lover  en  train , could  come 
when  she  chose — and  she  often  chose.  Mignot  came  when  he 
liked.  Great-nephew  d’Hornoy  was  a constant  visitor. 

At  different  times  there  were  two  adopted  daughters  and  two 
Jesuit  priests  living  in  the  house.  One  relative,  as  will  be  seen, 
was  at  Ferney  for  a decade — completely  paralysed.  And  hanging 
about  the  house  were  generally  a trio  or  a quartette  of  gentlemen 
ne’er-do-weels,  who  sometimes  copied  their  host’s  manuscripts, 
and  sometimes  stole  them. 

In  the  midst  of  such  a household  Voltaire  pursued  his  way 
and  his  life’s  work,  wonderfully  methodically  and  equably.  It 


342 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAHIE 


[1759 


was  his  custom  to  stay  in  bed  till  eleven  o’clock,  or  later.  There 
he  read  or  wrote ; or  dictated  to  his  secretaries  with  a distressing 
rapidity.  Sometimes  he  was  reading  to  himself  at  the  same  time. 
About  eleven,  a few  of  his  guests  would  come  up  and  pay  him  a 
brief  visit. 

The  rest  of  the  morning  he  spent  in  the  gardens  and  farms, 
superintending  and  giving  orders.  In  earlier  years,  he  dined 
with  his  house  party — in  an  undress,  for  which  he  always  apolo- 
gised and  which  he  never  changed.  Later  on,  he  always  dined 
alone.  After  dinner  he  would  go  into  the  salon  and  talk  for  a 
little  with  his  guests.  The  whole  of  the  rest  of  the  afternoon 
and  evening  until  supper-time  he  spent  in  study  : in  which  he 
never  allowed  himself  to  be  interrupted.  One  at  least  of  his 
guests  complained  that  his  only  fault  was  to  be  lfort  renferme .’ 

At  supper  he  appeared  in  as  lively  spirits  as  a schoolboy  set 
free  from  school.  It  was  the  time  for  recreation  : and  a well- 
earned  recreation  too.  He  led  his  guests  to  talk  on  such  subjects 
as  pleased  them.  When  a discussion  grew  serious,  he  would  listen 
without  saying  a word,  with  his  head  bent  forward.  Then,  when  his 
friends  had  adduced  their  arguments,  he  advanced  his  own,  in 
perfect  order  and  clearness,  and  yet  with  an  extraordinary  force  and 
vehemence.  He  was  seldom  his  best  before  a large  company,  espe- 
cially of  the  kind  that  had  come,  as  he  said, ‘ to  see  the  rhinoceros.’ 
But  with  a few  kindred  spirits  he  was  as  brilliant  as  he  had  been 
twenty  years  before  over  the  supper-table  at  Cirey.  At  Ferney 
he  must  have  missed  indeed  that  woman  who,  having  flung  off 
her  mantle  of  science  and  erudition,  became  socially  what  socially 
all  women  should  be — an  inspirer,  a sympathiser,  a magnet  to 
draw  out  men’s  wit — a sorceress  who  talked  so  well  that  she 
made  her  companions  feel  not  how  clever  she  was,  but  how  clever 
they  were. 

Niece  Denis  was  certainly  the  most  goodnatured  of  hostesses — 
if  she  was  gaupe,  as  Madame  du  Deffand  said — and  was  grateful 
to  her  uncle’s  guests  for  mitigating  the  ennui  of  a country  life. 
She  was  useful  too.  When  Voltaire  was  tired  or  bored,  he  could 
retire  directly  after  supper  to  that  invariable  refuge,  bed ; and 
leave  his  niece  to  act  with  his  visitors.  When  he  was  not  bored 
and  there  were  no  theatricals,  he  sometimes  read  aloud  a canto 
of  the  ‘ Pucelle  ’ as  in  old  times  ; or  quoted  poetry — any  but  his 


JEt.  65] 


FERNEY 


343 


own — which  he  never  could  recollect ; or  talked  theatres  or 
played  chess.  It  was  the  only  game  in  which  he  indulged,  and 
he  was  a little  ashamed  of  it.  Games  are  so  idle ! 

When  he  went  to  bed  he  started  work  afresh.  It  was  his 
only  intemperance.  If  he  kept  an  abundant  table  for  his  guests 
he  was  still  infinitely  frugal  himself.  His  dejeuner  consisted 
only  of  coffee,  with  cream ; his  supper,  of  eggs,  although  there 
was  always  a chicken  ready  for  him  in  case  he  fancied  it.  He 
drank  a little  burgundy,  and  owned  to  a weakness  for  lentils.  Of 
coffee,  in  which  he  had  indulged  freely  in  youth,  he  now  took 
only  a few  cups  a day.  He  had  a habit  of  ignoring  meals  alto- 
gether  when  he  was  busy — a little  idiosyncrasy  somewhat  trying 
to  his  secretaries.  Wagniere  also  complained  that  his  master 
was  too  sparing  in  sleep ; and  called  him  up  from  that  room 
below,  several  times  in  the  night,  to  assist  him  in  his  literary 
work.  When  he  had  a play  on  hand  he  was  1 in  a fever.’ 

Many  of  the  visitors  who  stayed  at  Ferney  have  left  an 
account  of  their  life  there.  Though  the  accounts  always  graphi- 
cally portray  the  character  of  the  writers,  they  sketch  much  less 
vividly  the  portrait  of  Voltaire.  But  from  such  accounts — all 
taken  together,  and  corrected  by  each  other  from  Voltaire’s  own 
descriptions,  from  Wagniere’s  and  from  Madame  Denis’s — Ferney, 
and  the  life  there,  were  as  nearly  as  possible  what  has  been 
depicted.  Changes  in  habits  are  inevitable  in  twenty  years. 
Differing  accounts  may  all  be  true — at  different  times.  Feverishly 
busy  for  Voltaire,  idle  and  sociable  for  Madame  Denis ; she 
carried  along  by  that  unceasing  stream  of  guests,  and  he  watching 
it,  half  amused  and  half  bored,  from  his  own  firm  mooring  of  a 
great  life’s  work — that  was  Ferney  for  its  master  and  mistress 
from  1758  until  1778.  They  did  not  regularly  take  up  their 
abode  there  until  1760.  They  did  not  give  up  Delices  altogether 
until  1765.  But  from  the  autumn  of  1758  Ferney  was  their  real 
home,  the  home  of  Voltaire’s  heart ; inextricably  associated 
with  him  by  his  friends  and  his  enemies ; the  subject  of  a 
thousand  scandals,  and  of  most  beautiful  imaginative  descriptions. 
Nearly  all  great  men  have  had  one  place  dedicated  to  them — 
Florence  to  Dante ; Corsica  to  Napoleon  ; Stratford  to  Shake- 
speare ; Weimar  to  Goethe  ; and  Ferney  to  Voltaire. 


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[1759 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

‘ CANDIDE,*  AND  6 ECRASEZ  L’lNFAME  * 

On  February  10,  1759,  Voltaire’s  ‘ Natural  Law,’  Helvetius’s 
book  ‘ On  the  Mind,’  and  six  others  were  publicly  burnt  in  Paris 
by  the  hangman. 

In  March  the  ‘ Encyclopaedia  ’ was  suspended. 

‘ Natural  Law,’  it  will  be  remembered,  was  nothing  but  a 
seeking  for  an  answer  to  that  everlasting  question  6 What  is 
truth  ? ’ 

‘ On  the  Mind  ’ was  the  naive  expression  of  the  materialism 
of  the  wittiest  freethinker  in  Paris,  Helv5tius,  maitre  d’hotel  to 
the  Queen  and  Farmer-General.  But  the  Dauphin  showed  it  to 
his  mother,  and  it  received  the  compliment  of  burning.  ‘ What 
a fuss  about  an  omelette  ! * said  Voltaire  contemptuously.  The 
destruction  of  his  own  6 Natural  Law  ’ disturbed  him  as  little. 
‘ Burn  a good  book,  and  the  cinders  will  spring  up  and  strike 
your  face  ’ was  one  of  his  own  axioms.  From  the  flames  of  its 
funeral  pyre,  the  thing  would  rise  a phoenix  gifted  with  immortal 
life  and  fame. 

But  the  suspension  of  the  1 Encyclopaedia  ’ hit  him  hard. 

Since  the  attempted  assassination  of  the  King  by  Damiens 
the  laws  against  the  freedom  of  the  press  had  been  growing  daily 
more  severe.  True,  the  poor  creature  had  had  a Bible  in  his 
pocket,  but  the  churchmen  argued  somehow  that  it  was  the  New 
Learning  which  had  guided  the  dagger.  Then  France  had  had 
reverses  in  war.  Suppose  these  misfortunes  all  came  from  these 
cursed  philosophers  and  their  ‘ Encyclopaedia  * ! As,  later, 
whole  nations  attributed  the  rot  in  the  crops  and  the  ague  in  the 
bones  of  their  children  to  the  withering  influence  of  that  great 
little  Corporal,  hundreds  of  miles  away  from  them,  so  in  the 
eighteenth  century  in  France  a great  party  in  the  State  attributed 


345 


JEt.  65]  * CANDIDE,’  AND  ‘ ECRASEZ  LTNEAME  ’ 

to  the  extension  of  learning  every  disaster  which  their  own  folly 
or  foolhardiness  brought  upon  them. 

They  turned,  and  brought  all  their  power,  influence,  and 
money  against  the  Encyclopedists.  D’Alembert  was  no  fighter. 
Student,  recluse,  and  gentle  friend — he  was  not  one  of  those  who 
could  write  with  a pen  in  one  hand  and  a sword  in  the  other.  ‘ 1 
do  not  know  if  the  “ Encyclopedia  ” will  be  continued,’  he  wrote 
to  Voltaire  as  early  as  the  January  of  1758,  ‘ but  I am  sure  it  will 
not  be  continued  by  me  ’ ; and  though  the  pugnacious  little 
warrior  of  Delices  wrote  and  passionately  urged  his  peaceful 
friend  not  to  do  what  his  absurd  enemies  wished — not  to  let 
them  enjoy  ‘ that  insolent  victory  ’ — still,  d’Alembert  withdrew. 
On  February  9,  1759,  Voltaire  wrote  that  he  seemed  to  see  the 
Inquisition  condemning  Galileo. 

But  it  was  as  he  said.  The  cinders  from  the  burning  sprang 
up  and  burnt  the  burners.  They  could  mutilate  the  ‘ Encyclo- 
paedia,’ but  they  could  not  kill  it.  Its  very  mutilations  attracted 
interest,  and  1 Natural  Law  ’ and  1 On  the  Mind  ’ continued  to  be 
sold — in  open  secrecy — a hundred  times  more  than  ever. 

It  will  not  have  been  forgotten  that  with  ‘ Natural  Law  ’ had 
originally  been  published  4 The  Disaster  of  Lisbon  ’ ; and  that 
the  doctrines  of  ‘ Lisbon  ’ had  been  refuted,  by  the  request  of  the 
Genevans,  in  a long,  wild,  rambling  letter  by  Jean  Jacques 
Rousseau,  wherein  that  absurd  person  had  pointed  out  that  if  we 
lived  in  deserts,  not  towns,  the  houses  would  not  fall  upon  us, 
because  there  would  not  be  houses  to  fall. 

Answer  a fool  according  to  his  folly ! A few  gay  bantering 
lines  were  all  Voltaire’s  reply  at  the  moment.  To  strike  quickly 
— or  wait  long — this  man  could  do  both.  He  loved  best  to  strike 
at  once ; but  if  he  could  have  patience  and  wait  to  gather  his 
weapons,  to  barb  his  arrows,  to  poison  his  darts,  why,  he  was  of 
nature  the  more  deadly.  This  time  he  had  waited  long.  The 
bantering  note  was  but  a sop  thrown  to  his  impatience. 
Rousseau’s  Letter  on  Optimism  bears  the  date  of  August  1756. 
It  was  not  till  the  early  part  of  1759  that  there  crept  out 
stealthily,  secretly,  quietly,  the  gayest  little  volatile  laughing 
romance  called  ‘ Candide.’ 

Written  in  some  keen  moment  of  inspiration — perhaps  at  the 
Elector  Palatine’s,  perhaps  at  Delices,  where,  it  matters  not — in 


346 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIEE 


[1759 


that  brief  masterpiece  of  literature  Voltaire  brought  out  all  bis 
batteries  at  once  and  confronted  the  foe  with  that  ghoulish 
mockery,  that  bantering  jest,  and  that  deadly  levity  which  few 
could  face  and  live. 

If  the  optimists  had  talked  down  the  passionate  reasonings  of 
the  4 Poem  on  the  Disaster  of  Lisbon  5 with  that  reiterated  ‘ All 
is  well/  ‘ All  chance,  direction  which  thou  canst  not  see — all 
partial  evil,  universal  good/  ‘ Candide’s  ’ laugh  drowned  those 
affirmations — so  loudly  and  so  often  affirmed  that  the  affirmers 
had  come  to  mistake  them  for  argument.  In  this  novel  of  two 
hundred  pages  Voltaire  withered  by  a grin  the  cheap,  current, 
convenient  optimism  of  the  leisured  classes  of  his  day,  and  con- 
founded Pope  as  well  as  Rousseau.  This  time  he  did  not  argue 
with  their  theories.  He  only  exposed  them.  In  that  searching 
light,  in  that  burning  sunshine,  the  comfortable  dogmas  of  the 
neat  couplets  of  the  ‘ Essay  on  Man  ’ blackened  and  died,  and 
Rousseau  was  shown  forth  the  laughing-stock  of  the  nations. 

One  of  the  few  literary  classics  which  is  not  only  still  talked 
about  but  still  sometimes  read,  is  ‘Candide.’  Nothing  grows 
old-fashioned  sooner  than  humour.  The  jests  which  amuse  one 
age  bore  and  depress  the  next.  But  it  is  part  of  Voltaire’s  genius 
in  general,  and  of  4 Candide 5 in  particular,  that  its  wit  is  almost 
as  witty  to-day  as  when  it  was  written.  It  still  trips  and  dances 
on  feet  which  never  age  or  tire.  Nothing  is  more  astounding 
in  it  than  what  one  critic  has  called  its  ‘ fresh  and  unflagging 
spontaneity  ’ — its  ‘ surpassing  invention.’  Its  vigour  is  such  as 
no  time  can  touch.  It  reads  like  the  work  of  a superabundant 
youth.  Yet  Voltaire  was  actually  sixty-four  when  he  wrote  it ; 
and  if  indeed  ‘ we  live  in  deeds,  not  years  : in  thoughts,  not 
breaths  : in  feelings,  not  in  figures  on  a dial,’  he  was  a thousand. 

The  story  is,  briefly,  that  of  a young  man  brought  up  in 
implicit  belief  in  the  everything-for-the-best  doctrine,  who  goes 
out  into  a world  where  he  meets  with  a hundred  adventures 
which  give  it  the  lie.  Life  is  a bad  bargain,  but  one  can  make 
the  best  of  it.  That  is  the  moral  of  ‘ Candide.’  ‘ What  I know,’ 
says  Candide,  ‘ is  that  we  must  cultivate  our  garden.’  ‘ Let  us 
work  without  reasoning : that  is  the  only  way  to  render  life 
supportable.’ 

As  children  read  the ‘ Gulliver’s  Travels  ’ of  that  past  master  of 


JET.  65]  ‘ CANDIDE,’  AND  ‘ ECEASEZ  LTNFAME  ’ 


347 


irony,  Jonathan  Swift,  as  the  most  innocent  and  amusing  of 
fairy  tales,  so  can  4 Candide  ’ be  read  as  a rollicking  farce  and  as 
nothing  else  in  the  world. 

Who  knows,  indeed,  when  he  puts  down  that  marvellous 
novelette,  whether  to  laugh  at  those  inimitable  traits  of  the 
immortal  Dr.  Pangloss — 4 noses  have  been  made  to  carry 
spectacles,  therefore  we  have  spectacles ; legs  have  been  made  for 
stockings,  therefore  we  have  stockings  ; pigs  were  made  to  be 
eaten,  and  therefore  we  have  pork  all  the  year  round  ’ — or  to  weep 
over  the  wretchedness  of  a humanity  which  perforce  consoles 
itself  with  lies,  and,  too  miserable  to  face  its  misery,  pretends 
that  all  is  well  ? 

One  woman,  with  her  heart  wrung  by  that  cruel  mockery, 
speaks  of  4 Candide’s  ’ 4 diabolical  gaiety.*  4 It  seems  to  be  written 
by  a being  of  another  nature  than  our  own,  indifferent  to  our 
fate,  pleased  with  our  sufferings,  and  laughing  like  a demon  or 
a monkey  at  the  miseries  of  that  humankind  with  which  he  has 
nothing  in  common.’  Some  have  found  in  it  the  blasphemies  of 
a devil  against  the  tender  and  ennobling  Christianity  which  has 
been  the  faith  and  the  hope  of  sorrowing  millions  ; and  others 
discover  in  it  only  one  of  the  most  potent  of  arguments  for 
embracing  that  Christianity — the  confession  that  no  other  system 
so  consolatory  can  be  found.  To  one  reader  it  is  the  supreme 
expression  of  a genius  who,  wherever  he  stands,  stands  alone — 
4 as  high  as  mere  wit  can  go  ’ ; to  another,  shorn  of  its  indecency, 
it  is,  like  4 Gulliver,’  but  a bizarre  absurdity  for  youth ; while  a 
third  finds  it  4 most  useful  as  a philosophical  work,  because  it  is 
read  by  people  who  would  never  read  philosophy.’ 

Perhaps  the  genius  of  4 Candide  ’ lies  partly  in  the  fact  that 
it  is  both  serious  and  frivolous,  ghoulish  and  gay,  tragedy  and 
comedy  ; and  equally  perfect  as  the  one  or  the  other. 

Voltaire  assigned  4 this  little  sort  of  romance’  to  that  con- 
venient person,  the  Chevalier  de  Mouhy,  on  whom,  in  1738,  had 
been  fathered  the  4 Preservatif.’  The  real  author  declared  that 
the  thing  was  much  too  frivolous  for  him  to  have  written.  He 
had  read  it,  to  be  sure.  4 The  more  it  makes  me  laugh  the  more 
sorry  I am  it  is  assigned  to  me.’  Almost  every  letter  of  this 
spring  of  1759  contains  a mocking  allusion  to  optimism . 
4 Candide  ’ was  much  to  the  fore  in  its  writer’s  mind. 


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THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1759 


On  March  2 the  Council  of  Geneva  condemned  the  book  to 
be  burnt ; and  once  more,  as  in  the  case  of  the  4 Pucelle,’  Voltaire 
watched  a bonfire  with  a very  twisted  smile.  He  revenged  him- 
self by  flooding  Geneva  with  anonymous  irreligious  pamphlets 
with  such  religious  names — 6 Christian  Dialogues  ’ and  ‘ The 
Gospel  of  the  Day  * — as  to  deceive  the  very  elect. 

But  it  was  not  only  his  suspected  paternity  in  the  case  of 
‘ Candide,’  but  a suspected  paternity  of  an  even  more  dangerous 
child,  that  prevented  Voltaire  in  this  spring  giving  up  his  whole 
soul  peacefully  to  rebuilding  Ferney  and  laying  out  gardens. 
Frederick  was  in  the  midst  of  a disastrous  campaign;  but, 
unfortunately,  no  disaster  stopped  him  writing  to  Voltaire  or 
composing  verses.  Wilhelmina’s  death  had  only  healed  the 
old  wounds  for  a while.  They  broke  out  afresh.  In  March  this 
strange  Damon  and  Pythias  were  again  squabbling  over  that 
ancient  bone  of  contention,  Maupertuis ; and  then,  as  incon- 
sistently as  if  they  had  been  a couple  of  schoolgirls,  passionately 
regretting  their  old  amity.  ‘ I shall  soon  die  without  having 
seen  you,'  wrote  Voltaire  on  March  25.  ‘ You  do  not  care,  and  I 

shall  try  not  to  care  either.  ...  I can  live  neither  with  you  nor 
without  you.  I do  not  speak  to  the  King  or  the  hero  : that  is 
the  affair  of  sovereigns.  I speak  to  him  who  has  fascinated  me, 
whom  I have  loved,  and  with  whom  I am  always  angry.’  Then 
they  remembered  Frankfort  and  Frey  tag,  and  began  snarling  land 
growling  again. 

And  then — then — a book  of  Frederick’s  poems  which  abused 
Louis  XV.  and  Madame  de  Pompadour  was  opened  in  the  post 
on  its  way  from  Frederick  to  Voltaire.  And  in  a trice  Voltaire  is 
quaking  lest  he  should  be  thought  to  have  inspired,  or  positively 
written,  verse  so  dangerous  and  disrespectful. 

No  emergency  had  ever  yet  robbed  him  of  his  cleverness. 
He  took  the  packet  to  the  French  envoy  at  Geneva  and  showed 
him  the  broken  seal ; and  then,  by  the  envoy’s  advice,  sent  the 
whole  thing  to  Choiseul,  the  head  of  the  French  Ministry. 
Choiseul  was  himself  a verse-maker ; he  wrote  a virulent  versified 
satire  upon  Frederick  and  sent  it  to  Voltaire.  4 Tell  your  King, 
if  he  publishes  his  poems  I shall  publish  mine.’ 

Voltaire  says  that  if  he  had  wished  to  amuse  himself  he 
might  have  seen  the  Kings  of  France  and  Prussia  engaged  in 


349 


JE t.  65]  ‘ CANDIDE,’  AND  ‘ ECRASEZ  LTNFAME  ’ 

a war  of  verses.  But  he  was  the  friend  of  peace  as  well  as  the 
friend  of  Frederick.  He  begged  Frederick  not  to  shut  every  door 
of  reconciliation  with  the  King  of  France  by  publishing  that 
ode  ; and  added,  that  in  mortal  fear  of  its  being  attributed  to 
Uncle  Voltaire,  niece  Denis  had  burnt  it.  Frederick  would  not 
have  been  human  had  he  not  immediately  felt  convinced  that 
those  ashes  contained  the  finest  lines  he  had  ever  written.  But 
they  were  ashes.  The  episode  closed. 

On  July  27,  1759,  Maupertuis  died  at  Bale,  ' of  a repletion 
of  pride,’  said  Voltaire.  Akakia,  busy  with  his  history  of  'Peter 
the  Great,’  and  with  touching  up  ' Tancred,’  or  his  ' Chevaliers  ’ 
as  he  called  it  sometimes,  must  needs  push  them  aside  and  shoot 
an  arrow  or  two  of  his  barbed  wit  at  that  poor  enemy’s  dead 
body.  'Enjoy  your  hermitage,’  Frederick  wrote  back  to  him 
gravely.  ' Do  not  trouble  the  ashes  of  those  who  are  at  peace  in 
the  grave.  . . . Sacrifice  your  vengeance  on  the  shrine  of  your 
own  reputation  . . . and  let  the  greatest  genius  in  France  be 
also  the  most  generous  of  his  nation.’  The  counsel  was  just  and 
noble.  Alas  ! it  was  even  more  needed  than  Frederick  guessed. 
At  this  very  time  Voltaire  was  writing  his  secret  ' Memoirs  for 
the  Life  of  M>  de  Voltaire.’  They  were  not  published  till  after 
his  death.  They  were  never  meant  to  be  published  at  all.  They 
contain  what  Morley  has  well  called  ' a prose  lampoon  ’ on  the 
King’s  private  life,  ' which  is  one  of  the  bitterest  libels  that  malice 
ever  prompted.’ 

Its  incomprehensible  author  was  still  actually  compiling  it 
when,  for  the  third  time,  he  took  up  his  role  of  peacemaker 
between  France  and  Frederick. 

This  time,  Tencin  and  Bichelieu  having  been  tried  in  vain, 
the  medium  was  to  be  Choiseul,  Choiseul  being  approached  by 
Voltaire’s  angel,  d’Argental.  The  moment  was  favourable.  The 
campaign  of  1759  was  wholly  disastrous  to  Frederick : and  on 
August  12  he  was  beaten  by  the  united  armies  at  Kunersdorf. 
Chased  from  his  States,  ' surrounded  by  enemies,  beaten  by  the 
Russians,  unable  to  replenish  an  exhausted  treasury,’  ' Luc,’ 
as  Voltaire  phrased  it,  'was  still  Luc.’  He  still  kept  his  head 
above  the  foaming  waters  that  would  have  engulfed  any  other 
swimmer.  ' Very  embarrassed,  and  not  less  embarrassing  to  other 
people ; astonishing  and  impoverishing  Europe,  and  writing 


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THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1759 


verses/  Frederick,  as  if  to  give  himself  time — as  if,  though  he 
never  meant  to  yield  to  such  advances,  he  yet  did  not  dare  to 
openly  refuse  them — coquetted  with  the  peace  offers  of  M.  de 
Choiseul,  sent  through  that  1 Bureau  d’adresse/  Voltaire.  It  is 
not  a little  wonderful  that  Voltaire,  with  his  itching  fingers  for 
action,  could  suffer  himself  to  be  a ‘ Bureau  d’adresse/  a passive 
medium,  even  for  a while.  But  he  did.  An  immense  corre- 
spondence passed  between  himself  and  Frederick — for  the  benefit 
of  Choiseul.  Frederick  was  alluded  to  as  Mademoiselle  Pestris 
or  Pertris  : and  very  coy  was  Mademoiselle  over  the  matter. 
Shall  it  be  peace  ? shall  it  not  ? It  was  a delicate  negotiation, 
said  that  ‘ Bureau  d’adresse/  very  truly.  It  was  like  the  play  of 
two  cats — each  with  velvet  paws  to  hide  its  claws. 

It  came  to  nothing.  Though,  perhaps,  when  in  December 
there  appeared  in  Paris  a book  entitled  ‘ The  Works  of  the 
Philosopher  of  Sans-Souci/  containing  those  free-thinking  effu- 
sions a Most  Christian  King  had  written  under  the  rose,  and 
which  he  would  not  at  all  wish  to  see  daylight,  Choiseul’s  claw 
had  been  active  in  the  matter.  Fortunately  Voltaire  could  not 
be  suspected.  Had  not  Freytag  taken  from  him  at  Frankfort 
that  ‘ (Euvre  de  Poeshie  du  Roi  Mon  Maitre,’  which  was  none 
other  than  the  ‘ Works  of  the  Philosopher  of  Sans-Souci’  under 
a different  name?  Still,  the  year  1760  opened  as  1759  had 
done,  with  Damon  and  Pythias  still  sparring  at  each  other.  ‘ You 
have  embroiled  me  for  ever  with  the  King  of  France,  you  have 
lost  me  my  posts  and  pensions,  you  have  ill-treated  me  at  Frank- 
fort, me  and  an  innocent  woman/  writes  Voltaire  to  Frederick 
from  peaceful  Tourney  in  April  1760. 

And  in  May  Frederick  wrote  back,  ‘ If  you  were  not  dealing 
with  a fool  in  love  with  your  genius/  what  might  I not  do  and 
say  ? As  it  is — 4 Once  for  all,  let  me  hear  no  more  of  that  niece 
who  bores  me,  and  has  nothing  but  her  uncle  to  cover  her 
defects.’ 

The  niece  who  bored  Frederick  must  have  been  very  nearly 
as  bored  herself  throughout  the  remainder  of  this  year  1759  as 
she  confessed  to  have  been  at  the  beginning.  Uncle  Voltaire 
was  always  so  engrossed  with  writing,  or  with  those  stupid  farms 
and  gardens.  ‘ The  more  you  work  on  your  land,  the  more  you 
will  love  it/  he  had  written  to  Madame  de  Fontaine  in  the 


351 


M t.  65]  ‘ CANDIDE,’  AND  ‘ ECRASEZ  LTNFAME  ’ 

summer.  ‘ The  corn  one  has  sown  oneself  is  worth  far  more  than 
what  one  gets  from  other  people’s  granaries.’  And  then,  there 
were  so  few  visitors. 

Yalette,  a needy,  clever,  unsatisfactory  acquaintance  of 
d’Alembert’s,  was  at  Delices  in  December ; and  during  the  year  a 
man  named  d’Aumard  had  arrived  on  a visit.  But  that  was  all. 

D’Aumard  was  a young  soldier  cousin  of  Voltaire’s  mother. 
Of  very  ordinary  abilities,  and  morals  rather  below  the  very  low 
average  of  his  day,  that  distant  cousinship  was  the  only  claim  he 
had  upon  Voltaire’s  notice.  But  it  was  more  than  sufficient. 
Voltaire  had  already  sent  him  presents  of  money  through 
Madame  Denis,  and  made  him  a promise  of  a pension  for  life. 
Directly  he  arrived  at  Delices  he  was  attacked  by  what  was  at 
first  taken  to  be  rheumatism.  Tronchin  was  called  in.  Voltaire 
sent  d’Aumard  to  Aix  for  the  waters.  But  neither  the  first 
physician  nor  the  most  fashionable  cure  in  Europe  was  of  any 
avail.  D’Aumard  became  a helpless  and  hopeless  cripple.  In 
1761  Voltaire  said  that  it  required  four  persons  to  move  him 
from  one  bed  to  another.  In  this  condition  he  lived  in  Voltaire’s 
house  for  at  least  ten  years,  and  finally  died  there.  His  host  en- 
gaged in  a long  correspondence  about  his  case  with  the  surgeon 
of  the  Royal  Footguards,  and  entered  into  every  detail  with 
infinite  pains  and  minuteness.  To  a busy  and  active  Voltaire  the 
fate  of  this  young  man,  shut  out  of  all  work  and  interest — 
hearing,  as  he  lay  on  the  bed  from  which  he  was  never  to  rise, 
the  stir  and  movement  of  a life  in  which  he  could  never  join — 
seemed  peculiarly  pitiable.  He  makes  a hundred  sympathetic 
allusions  to  him.  That  his  own  conduct  was  infinitely  generous 
he  seems  to  have  wholly  lost  sight  of  in  the  fact  that  d’Aumard’s 
fate  was  infinitely  sad.  Yet  Voltaire  had  a reward  if  he  wanted 
one.  To  Madame  du  Deffand’s  question  if  life  were  worth  living 
he  could  reply  ‘ Yes.  I know  a man  completely  paralysed  who 
loves  it,  to  folly.’  The  man  was  d’Aumard. 

In  this  year  Voltaire  obtained,  after  the  exercise  of  even  more 
than  his  usual  persistence,  and  after  working  himself  and  his 
friends  to  death  to  attain  his  aim,  the  grant  of  two  letters-patent 
for  his  lands  of  Tourney  and  Ferney.  He  set  great  value  on 
these  letters  as  declaring  him  a French  subject. 

Also  in  this  year  he  heard  of  the  loss  of  that  very  old  English 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


352 


[1759 


friend  of  his,  Falkener.  In  1774  Falkener’s  two  sons  came  to 
stay  with  him  at  Ferney. 

He  still  kept  himself  well  au  courant  of  English  affairs  and 
English  literature. 

It  was  in  1759  he  wrote  to  Madame  du  Deffand  that  there 
was  nothing  passable  in  4 Tom  Jones  ’ but  the  character  of  the 
barber ; and  of  4 A Tale  of  a Tub  * as  ‘ a treasure-house  of  wit.' 
He  also  read — and  yawned  over  — 4 Clarissa  Harlowe  ’ and 
4 Pamela  ’ ; and  in  1760  he  was  criticising  4 Tristram  Shandy/ 
No  other  great  Frenchman  of  his  day  got  into  the  heart  of 
English  literature  and  English  character  as  Voltaire  did.  4 An 
Englishman  who  knows  France  well  and  a Frenchman  who 
knows  England  well  are  both  the  better  for  it,’  is  one  of  the 
shrewdest  of  his  sayings,  and  he  said  many  shrewd  things,  on  the 
two  races.  4 The  English  know  how  to  think  ; the  French  know 
how  to  please/  4 We  are  the  whipped  cream  of  Europe.  There 
are  not  twenty  Frenchmen  who  understand  Newton/ 

But  there  was  another  foreign  country  besides  England  which 
was  engaging  his  attention  now — Russia. 

In  this  1759  he  produced  the  first  volume  of  that  4 History  of 
Peter  the  Great/  which  he  had  undertaken  to  write  two  years 
earlier,  in  1757,  at  the  request  of  Peter’s  daughter,  Elizabeth. 

In  the  spring  of  1717,  when  Arouet  was  an  imprudent  young 
Paris  wit  of  three-and-twenty,  awaiting  his  first  introduction  to 
the  Bastille,  he  had  seen  the  great  Peter  in  the  flesh,  being  shown 
the  shops  of  the  capital,  the  lion  of  its  season — 4 neither  of  us 
thinking  then  that  I should  become  his  historian.’ 

But  directly  Elizabeth  made  the  suggestion,  a Voltaire  of 
sixty-three  had  embraced  it  with  an  enthusiasm  which  would  not 
have  been  astonishing  in  an  Arouet  of  twenty-three,  and  set  to 
work  at  once. 

The  subject  bristled  with  difficulties.  First  it  involved 
an  enormous  correspondence  with  Schouvaloff,  the  Russian 
minister.  Schouvaloff  was  ready  and  eager  to  shower  maps, 
medals,  and  documents  upon  the  historian.  But  the  medals,  as 
the  historian  pointed  out,  were  not  of  the  slightest  use ; the 
maps  were  inadequate  ; and  the  documents  had  too  often  been 
tampered  with. 

Then,  too,  there  was  an  immeasurable  difficulty,  for  a writer 


353 


JE t.  65]  ‘ CAND1DE,’  AND  ‘ ECRASEZ  LTNFAME  ’ 

who  wanted  to  tell  the  truth,  in  the  fact  that  his  hero’s  own 
daughter  was  not  only  living,  but  had  commissioned  him  to 
write  the  work.  When  Frederick  wanted  to  know  what  in  the 
world  made  Voltaire  think  of  writing  the  history  of  the  wolves 
and  bears  of  Siberia,  he  represented  the  point  of  view  from  which 
most  people  then  regarded  Russia.  A cold,  ugly,  barbarous, 
uninteresting  place — what  in  the  world  can  you  have  to  say 
about  it  ? The  veil  of  tragedy  and  romance  which  now  hangs 
before  that  great  canvas  did  not  give  it  the  potent  charm  of 
mystery  in  the  eighteenth  century.  Only  Voltaire  would  then 
have  dared  to  write  ‘ Russia  under  Peter  the  Great,’  and  only 
Voltaire  could  have  made  it  readable. 

He  took  a flying  leap  into  that  sea  of  difficulties,  and  came 
up  to  the  top  safely  as  usual.  He  gave  Schouvaloff  a plan  of  the 
work  in  advance.  First,  there  are  to  be  no  unnecessary  details 
of  battles  ; secondly,  the  thing  will  be  called  not  ‘ The  History  of 
Peter  the  Great,’  but  ‘ Russia  under  Peter  I.,’  as  giving  me 
greater  liberty,  and  explaining  to  my  readers  in  advance  the  real 
aim  of  the  book  ; thirdly,  Peter’s  little  weaknesses  are  not  to  be 
concealed  when  necessary  to  expose  them. 

The  rough  sketch  was  bold,  and  so  was  the  finished  picture. 
But  to  its  boldness  were  united  that  grace  and  charm  by  which 
Voltaire  could  make  disagreeable  truths  sound  like  compliments. 
If  to  the  world  generally  Peter  was,  and  should  be,  but  the 
1 wisest  and  greatest  of  savages,’  ‘only  a king,’  and  a badly 
brought  up  one  at  that — to  Russia  he  was,  and  ought  to  be,  a 
great  man  and  a hero  ; and,  Peter  apart  altogether — and  there  is 
a good  deal  of  the  work  from  which  Peter  is  entirely  apart — 
the  book  ‘ revealed  Russia  to  Europe  and  herself,’ and  brought 
that  great  country  to  the  knowledge  and  the  interest  of  other 
nations. 

The  style  sometimes  bears  trace  of  the  difficulties  its  author 
had  to  overcome — the  fact  that  the  subject  was  chosen  for  him, 
not  by  him.  ‘ 1 doubt,’  he  wrote  to  Madame  du  Deffand,  ‘ if  it 
will  be  as  amusing  as  the  “ Life  of  Charles  XII.,”  for  Peter  was 
only  extraordinarily  wise,  while  Charles  was  extraordinarily 
foolish.’  All  the  time  he  was  writing  it,  ‘ Tancred,’  Ferney, 
4 Candide,’  Frederick,  were  calling  his  attention  away  from  it. 

Not  the  less,  the  History  was  a very  successfully  executed 

A A 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


354 


[1759 


order,  with  which  the  orderer  was  so  pleased  that  in  1761  she 
sent  the  author  her  portrait  set  in  diamonds. 

To  the  end  of  1759  also  belongs  a very  different  work  of 
Voltaire’s — one  of  those  spontaneous,  impulsive,  rollicking,  daring 
things  which  must  have  been  no  little  relief  to  his  mechancete  to 
turn  to  from  those  grave  ploddings  through  Schouvaloff’s  docu- 
ments. Encouraged  by  that  burning  of  ‘ Natural  Law  1 and  its 
companion  volumes,  and  by  the  suppression  of  the  ‘ Encyclo- 
paedia * in  the  early  part  of  the  year,  in  November  a weekly 
Jesuit  organ  called  the  ‘Journal  de  Trevoux,1  edited  by  one 
Berthier,  furiously  assailed  not  only  ‘ Natural  Law,’  which  fires 
could  not  destroy,  but  the  ‘ Encyclopaedia,1  which  prohibitions 
could  not  suppress,  and  all  the  works  of  enlightenment  in  France. 
Voltaire  had  always  an  inconsistent  tendresse  for  the  Jesuits. 
They  had  been  good  to  him  in  his  schooldays : and  among  them 
he  still  numbered  some  of  his  friends.  But  this  thing  was  too 
monstrous ! Voltaire  attacked  it  with  sharpest  ridicule,  and 
wrote  anonymously  that  scathing  pamphlet  called  ‘ The  Narrative 
of  the  Sickness,  Confession,  Death,  and  Be-appearanee  of  the 
Jesuit  Berthier.1  This  he  followed  by  another  pamphlet,  ‘The 
Narrative  of  Brother  Grasse.1  Both  were  but  burlesques.  True, 
there  was  a hit  in  every  line ; and  then,  if  not  now,  every  arrow 
went  home.  But  the  real  significance  of  the  pamphlets  is  in  the 
fact  that  they  were  a declaration  of  war.  Gardens  and  archi- 
tecture* farms  and  beehives — in  these  things  is  to  be  found 
happiness  perhaps.  But  there  has  been  no  great  man  in  the 
world  who  ever  thought  happiness  enough.  That  hatred  of 
intolerance,  that  passion  for  freedom  which  had  been  the  motive 
power  of  a young  and  struggling  Arouet,  was  still  the  motive 
power  of  this  affluent,  comfortable  Voltaire  of  sixty-five.  To  be 
sure,  it  is  easier  to  feel  sympathy  with  the  oppressed  and  the 
needy  when  one  is  oneself  downtrodden  and  poor : and  something 
more  difficult  when  one  is  oneself  prosperous  and  independent. 
It  must  be  accounted  to  Voltaire  for  righteousness  that  when  he 
no  longer  suffered  himself,  the  sufferings  of  others  appealed  to 
him  only  with  a double  force.  It  was  in  those  smiling  days  of 
Delices  and  Ferney  that  he  framed  his  battle-cry  and  formulated 
the  creed  of  all  the  philosophers,  and  the  aim  and  the  conviction 
of  his  own  life,  into  one  brief  phrase — Ecrasez  Vinfame, 


355 


M T.  65]  4 CANDIDE,’  AND  4 ECRASEZ  L’INFAME  ’ 

Friend  and  foe  still  remember  him  by  that  motto.  The  one 
has  idly  forgotten,  and  the  other  carefully  misunderstands,  what 
it  means  and  meant.  To  many  Christians,  ‘ Ecrasez  V inf  time  ’ is 
but  the  blasphemous  outcry  against  the  dearest  and  most  sacred 
mysteries  of  their  religion ; and  Vinfdme  means  Christ. 

But  to  Voltaire,  if  it  meant  Christianity  at  all,  it  meant  that 
which  was  taught  in  Borne  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  not  by 
the  Sea  of  Galilee  in  the  first.  If  it  ivas  Christianity  at  all,  it 
was  not  the  Christianity  of  Christ.  L'infame  did  mean  religion, 
but  it  meant  the  religion  which  lit  the  fires  of  Smithfield  and 
prompted  the  tortures  of  the  Inquisition ; which  terrified  feeble 
brains  to  madness  with  the  burning  flames  of  a material  hell, 
and  flung  to  the  barren  uselessness  of  the  cloister  hundreds  of 
unwilling  victims,  quick  and  meet  for  the  life  for  which  they  had 
been  created. 

L’infame  was  the  religion  which  enforced  its  doctrines  by  the 
sword,  the  fire,  and  the  prison  ; which  massacred  on  the  Night  of 
St.  Bartholomew ; and,  glossing  lightly  over  royal  sins,  refused 
its  last  consolations  to  dying  Jansenists  who  would  not  accept 
the  Bull  Unigenitus.  It  was  the  religion  which  thrust  itself 
between  wife  and  husband  in  the  person  of  the  confessor — him- 
self condemned  to  an  unnatural  life  which  not  one  in  a thousand 
can  live  honestly  and  aright ; it  was  the  religion  of  Indulgences, 
and  the  rich  : for  those  who  could  pay  for  the  remission  of  their 
sins  and  for  large  impunity  to  sin  afresh  ; it  was  the  religion 
which  served  as  a cloak  for  tyranny  and  oppression,  ground  down 
the  face  of  the  poor,  and  kept  wretchedness  wretched  for  ever. 

And  above  all,  Vinfdme  was  that  spirit  which  was  the  natural 
enemy  of  all  learning  and  advancement ; which  loved  darkness 
and  hated  light  because  its  deeds  were  evil;  which  found  the 
better  knowledge  of  His  works,  treason  to  God  ; and  an  exercise 
of  the  reason  and  the  judgment  He  had  given,  an  insult  to  the 
Giver. 

If  there  was  ever  a chance  for  the  foolish  to  become  learned, 
Vinfdme  deprived  them  of  it.  If  the  light  fought  its  way  through 
the  gross  darkness  of  superstition,  Vinfdme  quenched  it.  It 
prohibited  Newton  ; burnt  Bayle ; and  cursed  the  Encyclopaedia* 
If  men  were  once  enlightened,  Vinfdme  would  be  cast  down  from 
the  high  places  where  it  sat — as  Pope  or  as  King,  as  Calvinist  or 

A A 2 


356  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1759 

as  Cardinal ; but  always  as  the  enemy  of  that  Justice  which 
drives  out  oppression,  as  the  sun  drives  out  the  night. 

L’infame  cannot  be  translated  by  any  single  word.  But  if  it 
must  be,  the  best  rendering  of  it  is  Intolerance. 

No  one  can  have  any  knowledge  of  the  career  or  of  the  cha- 
racter of  Voltaire  without  seeing  that  this  Thing,  to  which  in  the 
year  1759  was  first  given  the  name  of  Infante,  was  his  one,  great, 
lifelong  enemy.  Loathing  of  it  coursed  in  his  bourgeois  blood 
and  was  bred  in  his  bones.  The  boy  who  had  seen  France  starve 
to  pay  for  the  Sun  King’s  wars,  and  Paris  persecuted  to  please  his 
mistress  and  his  confessor,  had  felt  surge  in  him  the  first  waves 
of  that  tireless  indignation  which  was  to  turn  a courtier  into  a 
reformer,  and  make  a light  soul,  deep.  By  the  time  he  himself 
became  the  Voice  crying  in  the  wilderness  of  men’s  sorrows,  the 
utterer  of  hard  truths,  V infante  had  imprisoned,  persecuted,  and 
exiled  him.  And  who  is  there  who  does  not  better  hate  wrong- 
doing when  he  has  himself  been  wronged?  He  had  revealed 
God  to  sages  through  Newton  ; and  the  hangman  burnt  the 
‘ English  Letters.’  He  had  studied  history,  especially  the  history 
of  the  religious  wars,  and  he  knew  what  V infante  had  done  in  the 
past  as  well  as  in  the  present.  He  declared,  with  that  extraordinary 
mixture  of  levity  and  passion  which  is  his  alone,  that  he  always 
had  an  access  of  fever  on  St.  Bartholomew’s  Day.  He  had  seen 
the  works  of  Boyer — fanatic  and  tyrant — the  product  of  a 
shameful  system,  and  not  the  less  harmful  in  fact  because  he  was 
honest  in  intention.  He  had  seen  Vinfdme  prompt  Damiens’ 
knife ; and  then,  in  its  besotted  inconsequence,  avenge  the  crime 
of  its  own  scholar  by  prohibiting  all  the  works  of  enlightenment 
in  France. 

In  1757,  in  writing  to  d’Alembert,  Voltaire  had  first  given 
Vinfdme  a name — the  Phantom.  A few  days  later  he  called  it 
the  Colossus.  Under  any  name  a d’Alembert  would  recognise  it. 
On  May  18,  1759,  Frederick  the  Great  spoke  of  it  by  that  title  it 
was  to  bear  for  ever,  in  one  of  those  bitter  yearning  letters  he 
wrote  to  his  old  friend.  £ You  will  still  caress  Vinfdme  with  one 
hand  and  scratch  it  with  the  other ; you  will  treat  it  as  you  have 
treated  me  and  all  the  world.’  And  in  June  Voltaire  replied: 
: Your  Majesty  reproaches  me  with  sometimes  caressing  Vinfdme . 
My  God,  no  ! I only  work  to  extirpate  it.’  And  the  next  year — 


357 


Me.  65]  4 CANDIDE,’  AND  4 ECRASEZ  L’INFAME  * 

June  8,  1760 — 4 1 want  you  to  crush  Vinfdme ; that  is  the  great 
point.  It  must  be  reduced  to  the  same  condition  as  it  is  in 
England.  You  can  do  it  if  you  will.  It  is  the  greatest  service 
one  can  render  to  humankind.’ 

Henceforward,  his  allusions  to  it  in  his  letters  became  more 
and  more  frequent.  Sometimes  he  abbreviated  it  to  Ecr.  Vinf . 
Sometimes  he  wrote  in  one  corner  4 E.  VI .’  4 The  first  of  duties 

is  to  annihilate  Vinf.  ; confound  Vinf.  as  much  as  you  can.’ 

4 This  Mr.  Ecrlinf  does  not  write  badly,  said  these  worthy 
people.’  One  of  his  theories  was  that  truths  cannot  be  too  often 
insisted  on.  4 Rub  it  in  ! rub  it  in  ! ’ he  would  cry.  He  rubbed 
in  his  infame . Now  in  passionate  earnest,  now  in  jest,  now 
cynically,  now  bitterly,  he  alluded  to  it  at  all  times  and  seasons 
and  to  all  kinds  of  persons.  To  Damilaville,  who  was  to  take 
Theriot’s  place  as  his  correspondent  and  who  himself  loathed 
Vinfdme  with  a deadly  intensity,  Voltaire  hardly  wrote  a letter 
without  that  4 Crush  the  monster ! ’ It  was  a catchword  at 
last.  4 1 end  all  my  letters  by  saying  Ecr . Vinf.,  as  Cato  always 
said,  That  is  my  opinion  and  Carthage  must  be  destroyed.’  By  it, 
he  heated  the  zeal  of  his  fellow-workers  in  the  cause  ; quickened 
the  4 phlegmatic  perseverance  ’ of  d’Alembert ; and  rallied  to  new 
effort  Helvetius,  Marmontel,  Holbach,  and  a dozen  lesser  men. 

It  has  been  seen  that  he  had  loathed  the  Thing,  a nameless 
monster,  for  fifty  years.  The  insults  of  the 4 Journal  de  Trevoux  ’ 
were  the  final  spur  to  action.  If  Berthier  had  not  pushed  him  to 
extremities,  no  doubt  some  other  of 4 those  serpents  called  Jesuits  ’ 
would  have  done  it  equally  effectually.  The  time  was  ripe  ; and 
Voltaire  was  ripe  for  the  time.  He  flung  down  the  glove  at  last 
and  declared  upon  Vinfdme  an  open  war,  which  was  to  be  war  to 
the  knife  till  he  had  no  longer  breath  in  his  body,  and  the  sword 
— his  pen — fell  from  a dead  hand. 


358 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1760 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

THE  BATTLE  OF  PAKTICLES, 

AND  THE  BATTLE  OF  COMEDIES 

On  March  10,  1760,  M.  le  Franc  de  Pompignan  took  the  seat  in 
the  French  Academy  left  vacant  by  the  death  of  Maupertuis,  and 
delivered  an  opening  address  which  was  nothing  but  an  attack  on 
the  philosophic  party. 

Marquis  and  county  magnate  was  Pompignan,  rather  a good 
minor  poet,  a native  of  Montauban,  and,  in  his  own  province  and 
his  own  estimation,  a very  great  man  indeed.  In  1736  he  had 
written  a play  with  which  he  had  tried,  vainly,  to  supplant 
Voltaire’s  ‘Alzire.’  He  and  Voltaire  met  afterwards,  in  amicable 
fashion  enough,  at  the  house  of  a mutual  friend.  And  then 
Voltaire  retired  to  Cirey  and  Madame  du  Chatelet : and  Le  Franc 
to  his  magisterial  duties  in  Montauban. 

But  by  the  year  1758  Montauban,  and  his  own  vanity,  had  so 
impressed  the  noble  Marquis  with  the  idea  that  his  genius  was 
wasted  in  a province,  that  he  came  up  to  Paris  : stood  for  a vacant 
chair  in  the  Academy  ; failed  to  gain  it ; stood  again  for  another 
chair  in  1760,  and,  as  has  been  seen,  won  it,  in  succession  to 
Maupertuis.  When  it  is  added  that  Le  Franc  was  also  Historio- 
grapher of  France  in  place  of  Voltaire,  and  that  he  was  practically 
the  only  nobleman  in  the  kingdom  who  was  at  once  clever,  educated 
and  orthodox,  his  design  to  use  that  Academical  chair  as  a stepping- 
stone  to  the  tutorship  of  the  Dauphin’s  sons — always  one  of  the 
most  influential  posts  in  the  kingdom — was  not  at  all  a wild 
ambition.  He  began  his  speech  by  praising  his  predecessor, 
Maupertuis,  as  in  duty  bound,  and  also  as  being  sure  to  raise  the 
ire  of  that  arch-fiend  of  philosophers,  Voltaire;  and  then  abused 
those  philosophers  and  their  works  roundly,  soundly,  and  at  length. 

The  chairman  of  the  Academy  made  reply  in  a very  fulsome 


Mt.  66] 


THE  BATTLE  OF  PARTICLES 


359 


speech,  in  which  he  compared  Le  Franc  to  Moses,  and  his  younger 
brother,  the  Bishop  of  Puy,  a not  illiberal  churchman,  to  Aaron. 

‘ The  two  brothers  are  consecrated  to  work  miracles,  the  one  as 
judge,  the  other  as  pontiff,  in  Israel.’ 

Moses  was  then  granted  an  interview  with  the  King,  in  which 
his  Majesty  highly  praised  that  Academical  discourse  as  little 
likely  to  be  applauded  by  the  impious,  4 or  by  strong  minds  ’ — 
which  he  took  to  be  the  finest  compliment  he  could  pay  it. 

On  March  28  one  of  those  ‘ esprits  forts  ’ was  writing  comfort- 
ably from  Delices  that  he  saw  all  storms,  but  saw  them  from  the 
port.  The  port ! Of  course  someone  sent  him  that  Academical 
discourse.  He  applied  the  remarks  on  the  philosophers  par- 
ticularly to  himself  (to  be  sure,  the  cap  fitted),  and  took  upon 
himself  to  avenge  them  all. 

One  fine  day  there  appeared  in  Paris,  without  date,  without 
any  indication  as  to  the  place  in  which  it  had  been  printed,  a 
little  brochure  of  seven  deadly  pages  entitled  the  ‘ Whens : or 
Useful  Notes  on  a Discourse  pronounced  before  the  French 
Academy  on  March  10,  1760.’  They  were  the  little  skiff  in 
which  Voltaire  sailed  into  the  teeth  of  the  storm. 

All  his  works  are  characteristic  in  a high  degree,  but  hardly 
any  are  so  characteristic  as  those  he  wielded  in  this  Battle  of  the 
Particles. 

Exquisitely  dainty  and  gay : as  fine  and  as  sharp  as  needles 
from  my  lady’s  work-basket,  and  yet  as  ‘ biting  and  incisive  as  a 
poignard  ’ : such  are  the  hall-marks  of  those  little  instruments  of 
torture  of  which  the  ‘ Whens  ’ was  the  first. 

‘ When  one  has  the  honour  to  be  admitted  into  a respectable 
company  of  literary  men,  one  need  not  make  one’s  opening  speech 
a satire  against  them.’ 

1 When  one  is  hardly  a man  of  letters  and  not  at  all  a 
philosopher,  it  is  not  becoming  to  say  that  our  nation  has  only 
a false  literature  and  a vain  philosophy.’ 

‘ When  one  is  admitted  into  an  honourable  body,  one  ought, 
in  one’s  address,  to  hide  under  a veil  of  modesty  that  insolent 
pride  which  is  the  prerogative  of  hot  heads  and  mean  talents.’ 

Voltaire  would  not  have  been  Voltaire,  nor  of  his  century,  if 
he  had  not  gone  on  to  remind  this  highly  correct  Marquis  that  in 
a free  youth  he  had  himself  coquetted  with  Deism  and  translated 


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[1760 


and  circulated ‘ The  Universal  Prayer  ’ — then  commonly  called 4 The 
Deists’  Prayer  ’ — of  Mr.  Pope.  He  also  added  that  for  his  Deistic 
opinions  this  proper  Le  Franc  had  been  deprived  of  the  charge  of 
his  province ; which  was  not  true,  but  made  the  story  much  better. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  Voltaire  denied  the  4 Whens.’ 
‘I  did  not  write  them,’  he  told  Theriot  on  May  20,  ‘but  I wish 
I had.’ 

They  had  roused  his  party  very  effectively.  If  ‘ the  shepherd, 
the  labourer,  the  rat  retired  from  the  world  in  a Swiss  cheese,’ 
was  pushed,  as  the  rat  said,  into  the  ‘deluge  of  monosyllables,’ 
how  should  the  philosophers  in  Paris  escape  it?  The  famous 
Morellet,  abbe,  writer,  freethinker,  one  of  the  ‘ four  theologians 
of  the  Encyclopaedia,’  whom  Voltaire  called  Mords-les  (Bite 
them)  from  the  caustic  nature  of  his  wit,  rushed  into  the  fray 
with  the  ‘ Ifs  ’ and  the  ‘ Wherefores  ’ ; and  a reproduction  of  the 
luckless  Le  Franc’s  translation  of  ‘ The  Universal  Prayer.’ 
Delices  followed  up  at  once  with  the  ‘ Yeses  ’ and  the  ‘ Noes,’  the 
‘ Whats,’  the  ‘ Whys,’  and  the  ‘ Whos.’  Delices  said  that  chuckling 
sustained  old  age : no  wonder  his  old  age  was  so  vigorous. 
There  was  not  a vulnerable  inch  in  the  body  or  soul  of  that  un- 
happy Marquis  which  one  of  those  particles  did  not  wound.  A 
riddle  ran  through  Paris,  ‘Why  did  Jeremiah  weep  so  much 
during  his  life  ? ’ ‘ Because,  as  a prophet,  he  foresaw  that  after 

death  he  would  be  translated  by  Le  Franc  ’ — Le  Franc  having 
compensated  for  that  ‘Universal  Prayer’  by  writing  the  most 
devout  works  ever  since.  Later  were  to  come  the  ‘ Fors  ’ and  the 
‘ Ahs.’  Some  were  by  other  hands  than  Voltaire’s.  But  his  was 
the  spirit  that  inspired  them  all.  Some  were  in  verse.  All  were 
brief.  Then  he  published  extracts  from  an  early  tragedy  of  Le 
Franc’s,  making  them  as  absurd  as  he  alone  knew  how.  The 
affair  was  the  talk  of  Paris  : the  most  delicious  farce  in  the  world. 
Madame  du  Deffand  spoke  of  Le  Franc  as  buried  under  ‘ mountains 
of  ridicule.’  Wherever  he  was  recognised  he  excited  shouts  of 
laughter.  He  solemnly  and  prosily  defended  his  translation  of 
‘ The  Universal  Prayer  ’ as  a mere  exercise  in  English,  which  it 
very  likely  was.  And  Paris  laughed  afresh.  Voltaire  declared 
that  Tronchin  had  ordered  him  to  hunt  Pompignan  for  two  hours 
every  morning  for  the  good  of  his  health.  Poor  Pompignan,  goaded 
to  madness,  presented  a petition  to  the  King  in  which  he  asked  the 


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361 


assistance  of  their  Majesties  and  recalled  to  them  the  splendid 
welcome  they  had  accorded  to  himself  and  his  Academical  discourse. 

But  Louis  XV.  could  not  prevent  Paris  laughing  nor  Voltaire 
answering  by  what  purported  to  be  an  extract  from  a newspaper 
of  Le  Franc’s  native  Montauban,  wherein  the  natives  of  that 
place  were  represented  as  appointing  a committee  to  go  to  Paris 
and  inquire  into  the  mental  condition  of  the  unfortunate  Marquis. 
But  this  thing  was  a brochure — a nothing. 

Delices  had  not  done  with  Montauban  yet.  There  was  a 
pause.  And  then  Voltaire  produced  one  of  the  most  scathing 
and  trenchant  satires  of  which  even  he  was  capable.  It  was  in 
verse,  and  it  was  called  4 Vanity.’  It  began  : 

Well,  what’s  the  matter,  little  bourgeois  of  a little  town  ? 

and  contains  many  lines  which  still  form  part  of  the  common 
talk  of  France. 

Gay,  fluent,  contemptuous — written  scornfully  in  a collo- 
quialism which,  in  that  day  of  set  and  formal  phrases,  was  in 
itself  an  insult — Pompignan,  like  Maupertuis,  was  stifled  with 
badinage,  and  laughed — to  death. 

Though  all  the  wit  of  the  thing,  and  more  than  half  its 
significance,  are  lost  in  a translation,  even  in  a translation  some 
idea  of  the  sufferings  of  that  wretched  provincial  Marquis  may 
be  gained  still. 

The  Universe,  my  friend,  thinks  of  you  not  at  all : 

The  future  less.  Look  to  your  house  and  diet : 

Drink  : sleep  : amuse  yourself : be  wise  : be  quiet. 

Oh,  but  my  beautiful  Discourse,  they  laugh  at  it ! 

The  malice  of  their  vulgar  gibes  hurts  so, 

That,  sure  of  justice,  to  the  King  I’ll  go. 

He’ll  make  it  law  to  find  my  writing  good. 

I’ll  tell  him  of  it  all  without  delay 

And  get  the  laugher’s  licence  ta’en  away. 

The  poem  ends  with  lines  which,  as  Voltaire  wrote  them,  stabbed 
straight  to  the  enemy’s  heart : 

Ruined  great  Alexander’s  tomb  and  town  : 

And  for  great  Caesar’s  shade  no  home  there  be, 

Yet  Pompignan  thinks  a great  man  is  he. 


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THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1760 


He  thought  so  no  longer.  ‘ Vanity  ’ was  his  deathblow.  The 
very  Dauphin  laughed  at  it.  The  Marquis  went  home  to  his 
province,  and  never  again  dared  to  appear  at  the  Academy. 

In  1769,  when  his  play,  ‘Dido/  was  acted  in  Paris,  the 
Comedie  Fran9aise  announced  quite  innocently  that  it  would  be 
followed  by  ‘ The  Coxcomb  Punished  ’ of  Pont-de-Veyle.  Every- 
thing was  against  poor  Pompignan.  He  died  in  1784.  The  turn 
of  his  priestly  brother,  Aaron,  was  yet  to  come. 

If  Pompignan  had  been  nothing  but  a self-satisfied  nobleman 
who  over-estimated  his  own  talents  and  under-estimated  those  of 
the  philosophers  and  the  Academicians,  he  would  certainly  not 
have  deserved  the  fury  of  ridicule  with  which  he  was  assailed, 
and  the  laugh  would  have  turned  against  the  laughers. 

But  this  was  no  harmless  fool.  It  may  have  been  a small 
thing  that,  as  Voltaire  wrote,  4 if  Le  Franc  had  not  been  covered 
with  ridicule,  the  custom  of  declaiming  against  the  philosophers 
in  the  opening  discourse  of  the  Academy  would  have  become 
a rule.’  But  it  would  have  been  no  small  thing  that  a Pompignan 
should  be  tutor  to  the  Dauphin’s  sons  ; should  teach  the  boy  who 
was  to  rule  France  a narrow  hatred  for  the  light  and  learning 
which  alone  could  save  it ; and  preach  the  principles  of  V infame 
to  the  susceptible  youth  who  would  one  day  practise  them  to  the 
ruin  of  a great  kingdom. 

Ecrasez  Vinfdme  ! Pompignan  was  but  a victim  to  that 
purpose.  Voltaire  kicked  him  aside  with  his  foot,  and  looked  out 
for  other  foes  to  vanquish. 

There  were  always  plenty  of  them.  He  had  on  hand  at  the 
moment  a satire  called  ‘ The  Poor  Devil,’  which  set  out  to  be  an 
account  of  the  adventures  of  that  Valette,  the  friend  of  d’Alem- 
bert and  the  guest  of  Delices,  but  which  ended  as  a fiercer 
‘Dunciad,’  ‘more  than  a satire,  more  than  a chef  d1  oeuvre  of  in- 
comparable verve  and  malignity,’  and  which  reveals  to  our  own 
day  many  an  ugly  secret  of  the  literary  life  and  men  of  that 
strange  epoch. 

But  the  general  satisfaction  of  whipping  a multitude  is  nothing 
to  the  personal  satisfaction  of  whipping  a unit. 

While  the  Pompignan  affair  was  still  running  high,  news 
came  one  morning — on  April  25,  1760 — that  a comedy  by 
a certain  Charles  Palissofc,  entitled  ‘ The  Philosophers  ’ and 


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363 


bitterly  ridiculing  that  party,  was  about  to  be  played  in  Paris. 
‘Very  well,’  says  Delices;  ‘I  cannot  prevent  that.  But  what 
I can  and  will  do  is  to  withdraw  “ Tancred,”  already  in  rehearsal/ 
So  ‘ Tancred  ’ is  withdrawn. 

On  May  2 Palissot’s  ‘ Philosophers  1 was  performed  for  the 
first  time. 

A clever  journalist  was  Charles  Palissot,  who,  in  1755,  had 
been  Voltaire’s  guest  at  Delices  with  Patu  the  poet.  His  play 
was  clever  too,  a rollicking  comedy  in  three  acts,  which  not  only 
laughed  at  the  philosophic  party  but  represented  them  as 
dangerous  to  society  and  the  State.  Helvetius,  Diderot,  Duclos, 
Madame  Geoffrin,  and  Mademoiselle  Clairon  were  openly  satirised. 
J.  J.  Rousseau,  declared  Voltaire,  was  represented  on  all  fours, 
with  a lettuce  in  his  pocket  for  provender. 

The  ‘ Encyclopaedia  ’ was  mentioned  by  name.  Two  noble 
ladies  openly  gave  the  play  their  patronage.  One  was  the  Princess 
de  Robecq,  the  mistress  of  Choiseul  the  minister,  and  so  a force 
to  be  reckoned  with. 

‘ The  Philosophers  ’ had  carefully  omitted  to  attack  the  two 
greatest  of  the  philosophers,  d’Alembert  and  Voltaire.  But  the 
one  wrote  an  account  of  the  thing  to  the  other,  and  that  Other 
began  to  inspect  his  weapons. 

True,  he  tried  mild  measures  at  first.  Palissot  sent  him 
a copy  of  the  play.  And  Voltaire  wrote  back  trying  to  win  its 
author  over  to  the  right  side,  or  at  least  to  an  impartial  attitude 
of  mind.  But  Palissot  did  not  mean  to  be  convinced.  Then 
Abbe  Morellet-Mords-Les-Bite-Them  was  flung  into  the  Bastille, 
at  the  instigation  of  the  Princess  de  Robecq  and  the  command  of 
Choiseul,  for  having  sneered  at  the  Princess  in  his  comic  answer 
to  Palissot’s  comedy,  called  ‘ The  Preface  to  The  Philosophers.’ 
These  things  were  not  precisely  soothing.  To  meet  ridicule  with 
reason  had  failed.  Gibe  for  gibe,  then  ; foolery  for  foolery  ! If 
Voltaire  was  one  of  the  two  who  could  play  at  that  game,  he 
was  always  the  winner  when  he  played. 

He  had  another,  older,  deadlier  foe  than  Palissot,  who  would 
also  be  the  better  for  a beating.  The  older  foe  was  Freron.  And 
the  beating  he  received  with  Palissot  was  called  ‘ The  Scotch 
Girl.’ 

Freron  was  still  a very  cool,  clever,  opulent,  successful 


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THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1760 

Parisian  journalist : still  the  bitterest  and  shrewdest  foe  of  the 
philosophers,  and  the  sharpest  tool  of  the  Court.  Voltaire,  it 
will  be  remembered,  had  no  reason  to  love  this  4 worm  from  the 
carcase  of  Desfontaines,’  the  defender  of  Crebillon,  the  supporter 
of  d’Arnaud,  the  founder  of  4 The  Literary  Year,’  that  review 
which,  appearing  every  ten  days,  had  been  for  twenty-three  years 
4 a long  polemic  against  the  Encyclopaedia  in  general  and  Voltaire 
in  particular/  But  Voltaire  seldom  made  the  mistake  of  under- 
rating his  enemy’s  powers.  He  spoke  of  Freron  as  the  only  man 
of  his  party  who  had  literary  taste.  He  acknowledged  him  to 
be  of  an  amazing  energy  and  courage,  of  great  self-command, 
and  an  excellent  critic. 

But  when  it  came  to  sharply  criticising  4 Candide  ’ in  that 
4 Literary  Year  ’ and  scornfully  twitting  4 Candide’s  ’ author  with 
his  dear  title  of  Count  of  Tourney,  the  Count  was  foolish  enough 
not  only  to  lose  his  temper  but  to  enumerate  his  grievances 
against  Freron  in  a letter  to  4 The  Encyclopaedic  Journal/  the 
rival  organ  of  4 The  Literary  Year/ 

There  was  certainly  a fine  air  of  coolness  and  indifference  in 
the  letter.  But  the  vif , warm  genius  of  a Voltaire  only  assumed 
these  qualities.  Freron  really  had  them.  Hence,  Freron  was 
a powerful  foe. 

Athirst  for  revenge,  then,  alike  on  Palissot  and  on  Freron, 
Voltaire  wrote  4 The  Scotch  Girl’  in  eight  days.  An  English 
play,  if  you  please,  by  Mr.  Hume,  brother  of  the  historian ; 
translated  into  French  by  Jerome  Carre ; and  before  it  appears, 
to  be  read,  discussed,  laughed  over,  and  recognised  in  every 
boudoir  in  Paris  as  a satire  on  Freron  and  on  Palissot’s  4 Philo- 
sophers/ Everything  fell  out  as  the  author  had  desired,  and 
laboured  that  it  should.  If  he  was  buried  at  Delices  and  hundreds 
of  miles  of  vile  roads  from  Paris,  he  had  friends  there  only  some- 
thing less  active  and  angry  than  himself.  He  had  in  himself 
the  vigour  and  genius  which  can  span  space  and  move  mountains. 

On  July  25,  the  day  before  the  play  was  to  appear,  he  caused 
to  be  circulated  in  Paris  a letter  in  which  Carre,  the  translator, 
complained  of  the  immense  efforts  Freron  had  made  to  damn 
4 The  Scotch  Girl  ’ in  advance.  These  advertisements  were  per- 
fectly successful.  On  the  first  night — Saturday,  July  26 — 
crowds  besieged  the  door  of  the  theatre  before  it  opened  ; some, 


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365 


the  friends  of  Freron,  some  of  Palissot,  some  of  Voltaire ; and 
all  knowing  enough  of  the  piece  to  be  quite  sure  they  should  be 
amused.  In  a prominent  place  in  the  auditorium  shrewd  Freron 
had  placed  his  pretty  wife,  to  excite  compassion  for  himself,  and 
anger  against  his  foes.  He  himself  sat  among  the  orchestra.  Male- 
sherbes,  the  minister,  had  a place  hard  by  him.  Palissot  was  in 
a box.  Many  neutral  persons,  piqued  only  by  curiosity,  found 
seats  in  the  house.  It  was  upon  their  pulse  Freron  kept  his 
finger.  It  was  their  displeasure  or  approval  which  would  give 
the  real  verdict  of  the  piece. 

‘ The  Scotch  Girl  ’ is  not  at  all  a good  play.  But  it  is  witty, 
topical,  and  infinitely  audacious.  ‘ It  is  not  sufficient  to  write 
well : one  must  write  to  the  taste  of  the  public/  said  Voltaire. 
He  had  not  written  well : but  he  had  written  for  the  psychological 
moment.  His  audience  had  expected  him  to  take  a bold  spring 
from  the  footboard  : and  he  jumped  from  the  roof.  His  old 
experience  of  England  enabled  him  to  give  one  of  the  first  sketches 
of  a comic  Englishman  ever  seen  on  the  French  stage.  The 
character  of  Freeport  is  the  best  in  the  piece : and  the  saving  of 
it.  The  scene  is  laid  in  a London  coffee-house — the  sub-title  of 
the  play  being  ‘Le  Cafe.’  Freron  appeared  as  Frelon : which, 
being  translated,  is  wasp  or  hornet.  Wasp  is  a Grub  Street  hack 
‘ always  ready  to  manufacture  infamy  at  a pistole  the  paragraph/ 

‘ When  I discover  a trifle,  I add  something  to  it : and  something 
added  to  something  makes  much.’  The  tactics  of  scandalous 
journalism  are  unaltered  to  this  day.  ‘ The  Philosophers  ’ was 
broadly  burlesqued  : and  to  philosophy  were  gravely  ascribed  all 
the  evils  under  the  sun. 

The  play  was  received  with  delight.  Foe  as  well  as  friend 
laughed  aloud.  Pretty  Madame  Freron  nearly  fainted  when  she 
saw  her  husband  thus  travestied ; and  did  not  make  matters 
better  by  naively  replying  to  a friend,  who  assured  her  that  Wasp 
did  not  in  the  least  resemble  her  husband  who  was  neither 
slanderer  nor  informer,  ‘ Oh  ! Monsieur,  it  is  too  well  done ! He 
will  always  be  recognised/ 

The  performance  took  place  at  five  o’clock  in  the  afternoon. 
The  next  day,  July  27,  was  a Sunday,  and  the  day  for  the 
appearance  of  a number  of  ‘ The  Literary  Year.’  It  contained  an 
account  of  that  first  night  under  the  title  of  ‘ The  Account  of  a 


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[1760 


Great  Battle,*  written  in  that  cool  and  easy  style,  principally 
remarkable  for  its  moderation  and  self-restraint,  which  was  the 
finest  weapon  in  Freron’s  armoury.  It  ended  with  a ‘Te 
Voltairium,’  a sort  of  parody  of  the  Te  Deum,  which  was  licensed 
by  the  censor,  to  the  great  indignation  of  the  philosophers  who 
had  so  often  been  profane — and  unlicensed. 

Meanwhile,  at  his  Delices,  Voltaire  wrote  his  account  of  that 
first  night — 1 An  Advertisement  to  the  Scotch  Girl.’  The  little, 
pricking,  red-hot  needles  of  his  style  were  much  less  effective 
for  his  purpose  now  than  the  judicial  calm  of  M.  Freron.  But, 
after  all,  Voltaire  was  the  winner.  ‘ The  Scotch  Girl  ’ had  what 
d’Alembert  called  1 a prodigious  success.’  The  provinces  received 
it  with  rapture.  It  was  played  three  times  a week  in  Paris.  Its 
last  performance  there  took  place  on  September  2. 

And  on  September  8 it  was  replaced  by  ‘ Tancred.’ 

No  man  in  the  world  better  understood  the  force  of  contrast, 
and  the  infinite  value  of  the  striking  and  the  bizarre  upon  the 
minds  of  his  countrymen,  than  Voltaire.  In  France,  if  anywhere, 
he  who  strikes  must  strike  at  once  ; must  appeal  immediately  to 
emotions  which  are  sooner  at  boiling  point  and  sooner  cooled 
than  the  emotions  of  any  other  nation  in  Europe.  ‘ The  Scotch 
Girl  ’ had  made  Paris  laugh  : and  Paris  loved  laughter.  It  had 
quite  forgotten  for  the  moment  that  it  had  also  loved  Freron, 
its  dear,  clever,  sociable,  amusing  journalist,  who  was  pleasantly 
renowned  for  giving  charming  little  suppers,  and  as  the  favourite 
of  the  great.  Here,  then,  was  the  moment  for  this  Swiss  exile, 
who  belonged  to  the  wrong  party,  who  persistently  thought — and 
said — the  wrong  things,  and  was  infinitely  able  and  dangerous, 
to  strike  in  with  his  ‘ Tancred.’  To  ensure  its  success  a hearing 
was  all  that  it  wanted.  Its  genius  could  be  trusted  to  do  the  rest. 
Voltaire  took  at  the  tide  that  flood  which  leads  on  to  fortune, 
and  sailed  straight  into  harbour. 

He  began  4 Tancred,’  it  is  said,  in  his  joy  on  learning  of  that 
decree  which,  in  April  1759,  forbade  spectators  henceforth  to  sit 
on  the  stage.  On  the  19th  of  the  next  month,  May,  he  wrote 
that  this  day  an  old  fool  finished  a tragedy  begun  on  April  22. 
At  first  he  called  it  ‘ Amenalde,’  or  ‘ my  Knights,’  or  ‘ The 
Knighthood,’  and  designed  to  have  it  played  by  Lekain  or 
Lauraguais  as  the  work  of  ‘ a young  unknown.’  ‘ I have  changed 


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367 


the  metre,’  he  wrote  on  May  29,  1759,  ‘ so  that  that  cursed  public 
shall  not  recognise  me  by  my  style.’ 

In  the  October  of  1759  he  and  his  amateur  company  had 
acted  it  at  Tourney.  It  moved  the  author  and  Madame  Denis  to 
tears ; but  as  he  very  justly  observed,  they  were  too  near  relations 
to  the  piece  for  their  emotion  to  count  for  much.  When  Mar- 
montel  had  stayed  at  Delices  in  the  summer  of  1760  he,  too,  had 
wept  over  it — had  returned  the  manuscript  with  his  face  bathed 
in  tears,  which  told  the  author,  he  said,  all  he  wanted  to  know. 

Every  omen  was  good.  For  several  weeks  during  the  summer 
of  1760  the  d’Argentals  had  the  manuscript  in  their  charge  in 
Paris.  They  had  seen  it  put  into  rehearsal.  Then  Voltaire  had 
withdrawn  it  to  punish  a company  which  dared  to  produce  ‘ The 
Philosophers.’  But  that  brave  ‘ Scotch  Girl  ’ had  effectually 
killed  ‘ The  Philosophers.’  The  time  was  ripe  indeed. 

The  theatre  was  crowded  to  the  full.  No  more  piquant 
contrast  could  be  imagined  than  between  the  rough  English  bur- 
lesque of  last  night  and  the  polished,  romantic  Sicilian  tragedy  of 
this.  Yesterday  there  had  not  been  a grave  face  in  the  house, 
and  to-day  every  eye  was  wet.  Madame  d’Epinay  was  there,  in 
the  most  fascinating  grief.  ‘ Satan,  in  the  guise  of  Freron,’  who 
was  in  the  amphitheatre,  spoke  of  the  thing  as  having  ‘the 
simplicity  and  natural  beauty  of  the  classic,  above  all  of  the 
Odyssey.’  When  d’Alembert  saw  it  for  the  third  time,  the  whole 
audience  was  in  tears.  Mademoiselle  Clairon  surpassed  herself 
as  the  heroine  : so  that  the  author,  always  largely  generous  in  such 
appreciations,  said  that  the  piece  owed  to  her  all  its  success ; and 
d’Olivet,  Voltaire’s  old  schoolmaster,  declared  there  had  been  no 
such  acting  since  the  days  of  Boscius.  As  for  Lekain — ‘ nothing 
is  comparable  to  Lekain,  not  even  himself.’  The  truth  was, 
luckily  for  Voltaire,  that  the  play  was  so  moving  that  few  were 
sufficiently  masters  of  themselves  to  criticise  coolly,  and  did  not 
even  carp  at  the  author  for  writing  in  a metre  with  which  they 
were  wholly  unfamiliar.  Marmontel,  who  wept  over  it,  had 
declared  very  justly  not  the  less,  that  the  style  was  not  equal  to 
that  of  Voltaire’s  earlier  tragedies  ; that  it  was  sometimes  tedious, 
and  a little  wanting  in  vigour.  But,  after  all,  he  had  wept. 
Marmontel’s  attitude  describes  ‘ Tancred  ’ exhaustively. 

Satan  in  the  amphitheatre  criticised  the  piece  with  the  only 


368 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1760 


criticism  that  need  ever  really  hurt — a just  one.  He  had  mingled 
praise  with  his  blame.  Voltaire  was  sensible  enough  to  recog- 
nise the  weight  of  censure  so  tempered. 

Freron  continued  to  conduct  his  ‘Literary  Year’  until  his 
death  in  1776.  When  he  gave  any  of  the  actors — such  as  Lekain 
or  Clairon — a bad  notice,  they  simply  revived  ‘ The  Scotch  Girl.’ 
And  M.  Wasp  mended  his  manners  at  once. 

In  September  Voltaire  dedicated  his  ‘ Tancred  ’ to  Madame  de 
Pompadour.  But  that  ‘ chicken-hearted  fellow/  as  he  called  her, 
made,  at  the  time,  no  acknowledgment  of  the  compliment.  The 
truth  was,  as  twice  before  in  their  history,  some  jealous  scandal- 
monger about  the  Court  had  read  an  evil  meaning  into  his 
flatteries. 

Meanwhile  the  hermit  of  Delices,  if  ever  in  his  life,  was  inde- 
pendent of  her  favours.  Delices  was  charming : Ferney  nearly 
finished  : and  Tourney  the  most  histrionic  place  in  Europe. 

In  the  June  of  1760  Marmontel  had  come  to  stay  at  Delices. 
Marmontel  was  a great  man  now : a successful  playwright ; and 
the  author  of  that  once  much  read  and  now  wholly  forgotten 
novel,  ‘ Belisaire.’  He  was  not  ungrateful  to  the  benefactor  who 
fourteen  years  earlier  had  launched  him  on  the  literary  sea  of 
Paris  ; while  Voltaire  on  his  side  had  always  a fellow-feeling  for 
that  brave  heart  which  at  eighteen  had  begun  the  world  on  a 
capital  of  six  louis,  hope,  cleverness,  and  a translation.  Mar- 
montel brought  with  him  one  Gaulard  ; and  found  at  Delices  a 
M.  Lecluse,  the  King  of  Poland’s  dentist,  who,  when  he  was  not 
mending  Madame  Denis’s  teeth,  acted  and  sang  most  agreeably. 

Of  course,  Marmontel  found  Voltaire  in  bed,  dying.  And  of 
course  the  moribund  read  aloud  the  ‘ Pucelle  ’ in  the  most  lively 
and  delightful  manner  in  the  world  ; took  the  visitors  to  see  the 
view  from  Tourney,  and  discussed  with  them  theatres,  Frederick 
the  Great,  J.  J.  Rousseau — everything  under  heaven.  He  also 
played  chess  with  Gaulard,  and  listened  to  Marmontel’s  poetry. 
And  after  a three  days’  visit,  hereafter  recorded  in  minutest 
detail  by  Marmontel,  the  visitors  left. 

Another  burst  of  gaiety  marked  the  autumn.  ‘ To  get  rid  of 
public  misfortunes  and  my  own,’  the  arch-foe  of  Freron  conducted 
another  theatrical  season,  and  asked  so  many  people  as  actors  or 
audience  that,  one  night  at  least,  Delices,  Tourney,  and  Ferney 


Mt.  66] 


THE  BATTLE  OF  COMEDIES 


369 


all  together  would  not  hold  them,  and  they  had  to  be  drafted  into 
neighbouring  houses.  Ferney  was  neither  finished  nor  furnished, 
but  there  were  attics  ready  which  accommodated  a few  guests 
and  their  servants.  Sometimes  the  plan  was  to  dine  at  Delices, 
see  a play  at  Tourney,  and  sleep  at  Ferney — ‘ on  the  top  of  each 
other,’  as  the  host  said.  The  theatrical  troupe  would  stroll 
about  the  gardens  of  Tourney  in  the  moonlight  in  the  intervals 
of  their  labours  ; and  as  they  were  young,  and  of  both  sexes,  they 
no  doubt  took  advantage  of  so  excellent  an  opportunity  for  a 
little  love-making.  Corrupter  of  youth ! cried  Geneva,  who  was 
by  no  means  best  pleased  just  now  with  a Voltaire  who  a little 
earlier  had  fought  Dr.  Tronehin  tooth  and  nail  to  establish  a 
troupe  of  comedians  of  doubtful  morals,  only  a quarter  of  a 
league  from  Geneva,  though  on  French  soil.  Dr.  Tronehin  won 
— for  the  time  ; the  comedians  were  ordered  away,  and  Voltaire 
and  his  good  doctor  were  excellent  friends  again  ; but  it  is  not 
in  the  Calvinistic  temperament  in  general  to  forget  or  to  forgive 
easily. 

And  then  this  autumn  season  was  marked  by  the  presence  of 
a most  dissipated  roue  of  a duke,  the  Duke  of  Villars,  who  was  a 
patient  of  Tronchin’s,  and  considerably  madder  upon  theatricals 
than  his  host  himself.  He  had  acted  from  his  earliest  youth  at 
Vaux  Villars,  where  a Voltaire  of  five-and-twenty  had  fallen  in 
love  with  that  gracious  Marechale,  Villars’  mother.  But  her  son, 
though  he  thought  great  things  of  himself  and  would  coach  the 
company  in  general,  was  a poor  performer.  He  casually  asked 
Voltaire  one  day  how  he  thought  he  acted.  ‘Why,  Sir,  like  a 
duke  and  a peer,’  answers  Voltaire.  Poor  Cramer,  the  actor- 
publisher,  was  so  misinstructed  by  his  noble  friend,  that  it  took 
him  a fortnight  to  unlearn  the  lesson  of  this  bad  master.  When 
he  had  done  so,  Voltaire  cried  out  to  Madame  Denis,  ‘ Niece, 
thank  God  ! Cramer  has  disgorged  his  Duke  ! ’ 

Also  of  the  company  was  Mademoiselle  de  Bazincourt, 
Madame  Denis’s  pretty,  poor  companion,  who  was  destined  to  a 
convent  from  which  Voltaire  could  not  save  her,  and  who  mean- 
time played  the  parts  of  ‘ Julia,  her  friend,’  to  perfection. 

On  September  29  a house-warming  took  place  at  Ferney,  in 
the  shape  of  the  marriage  there  of  M.  de  Montperoux,  the  envoy 
of  France.  Voltaire  gave  a great  dinner  in  his  new  house  to 

B B 


370  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1760 

celebrate  the  event,  and  from  henceforth  lived  there — at  first 
generally,  and  at  last  entirely. 

On  October  20  he  and  his  theatrical  company  were  sharply 
reminded  by  the  Council  of  Geneva  that  ‘ Sieur  de  Voltaire  had 
yesterday  a piece  played  at  Saint  Jean,  the  territory  of  the 
republic,  in  distinct  violation  of  a promise  he  had  made  in 
August  1755.’  They  went  on  acting  as  gaily  and  continuously 
as  ever.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  to  this  wicked  Voltaire  prohibi- 
tions were  only  sauce  to  the  plat,  and  made  it  a hundred  times 
the  more  irresistible. 

In  the  December  of  this  1760,  which  was  one  of  the  most 
full,  varied,  and  active  years  of  one  of  the  most  energetic  lives 
ever  lived  by  man,  Voltaire  appeared  in  a new  role.  He  adopted 
a daughter. 

In  estimating  his  character  no  trait  in  it  has  been  more  lost 
sight  of  than  that  which,  for  want  of  a better  word,  may  be 
called  his  affectionateness.  Yet  the  man  who  was  the  lifelong 
friend  of  false  Theriot,  as  well  as  of  faithful  d’Argental,  who 
kept  a warm  corner  in  his  heart  for  ungrateful  servants  and 
ne’er-do-weel  relatives,  who  supported  tiresome  nephews  and  at 
least  one  trying  niece,  to  say  nothing  of  that  crippled  profligate 
d’Aumard,  had  that  quality  in  a very  high  degree.  Satire  and 
cynicism  were  in  his  every  lively  utterance.  But  in  his  acts 
were  a tenderness,  a generosity,  and  a charity,  to  which  better 
men  than  he  have  not  attained. 

Mademoiselle  Marie  Corneille  was  the  great-niece  of  the  great 
Corneille.  Poor  and  provincial,  her  father  came  up  one  fine  day 
to  Paris  and  claimed  his  cousinship  with  the  great  Fontenelle. 
But  Fontenelle  had  so  long  lost  sight  of  this  branch  of  the 
Corneille  family  that  he  thought  the  man  an  impostor,  and  left 
his  money  elsewhere.  Then  who  but  Freron  must  needs  take 
compassion  on  this  hapless  little  family  of  three  persons — father, 
mother,  and  daughter — and  have  a play  of  their  uncle’s  per- 
formed for  their  benefit  ? But  even  five  thousand  five  hundred 
francs  do  not  go  far,  when  out  of  the  sum  debts  have  to  be 
paid,  three  persons  to  live,  and  one  to  be  educated.  Marie, 
of  nearly  eighteen,  had  to  be  removed  from  her  convent.  A 
friend  took  charge  of  her  for  a while.  And  then  Le  Brun, 
secretary  to  the  Prince  of  Conti  and  a second-rate  poet,  conceived 


H5t.  66] 


THE  BATTLE  OF  COMEDIES 


371 


the  happy  idea  of  enlisting  Voltaire’s  sympathy  for  her  in 
an  ode. 

It  is  not  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  Voltaire  adopted  her  on 
the  spot.  His  only  feeling  seems  to  have  been  one  of  complete 
delight  at  having  the  opportunity  of  doing  good  in  such  a 
charming  way ; and  he  considered  it,  he  said,  an  honour  for  an 
old  soldier  to  serve  the  granddaughter  of  his  general. 

On  November  5 he  was  arranging  details  for  her  journey  and 
her  education  with  Le  Brun. 

He  wrote  to  her  direct  to  assure  her  she  should  have  every 
facility  for  the  practice  of  her  religion,  for  reading,  and  for 
music  ; that  Madame  Denis  would  supply  her  with  a ward- 
robe ; that  she  should  have  masters  for  accomplishment ; 
and  learn  to  act  so  that  in  six  months  she  would  be  playing 
Chimene. 

In  the  second  week  in  December  Mademoiselle  arrived.  Quiet, 
gentle,  and  good,  as  naively  ignorant  as  she  was  ingenuously 
ready  to  learn,  tenderly  and  faithfully  attached  to  the  father  she 
had  left  as  she  was  to  grow  girlishly  fond  of  the  father  she  had 
found,  Marie  Corneille  comes  like  a fresh  and  virgin  air  across 
the  tainted  and  heated  atmosphere  of  that  eighteenth  century, 
like  some  human  angel  to  the  Voltaire  who  hardly  ever,  perhaps 
never  before,  had  intimately  known  a good  woman. 

He  began  at  once  to  give  her  lessons  in  reading  and  writing, 
and  in  grammar.  Mademoiselle  had  not  much  aptitude  for  that 
‘ sublime  science,’  or  for  any  science.  She  had  come  out  of  her 
convent  as  widely  and  profoundly  ignorant  as  even  those  good 
nuns  could  leave  a girl.  And  the  cleverest  man  of  his  age 
taught  her  to  write,  and  made  her  send  him  little  notes,  which 
he  returned  to  her  with  her  very  doubtful  orthography  corrected  ; 
made  history  as  amusing  as  a novel,  and  all  the  teaching  go 
gaily  4 without  the  least  appearance  of  a lesson.’  She  was  to 
have  a tutor  presently,  when  one  good  enough  could  be  found. 
Meanwhile  Voltaire  taught  her  by  word  of  mouth,  while  she 
looked  up  into  his  lean  face  with  her  clear  candid  eyes,  and  he 
looked  back  and  delighted  in  her  round  girlish  prettiness — ‘a 
plump  face  like  a puppy’s  ’ — and  her  adorable  naivete.  Madame 
Denis  forgot  her  comforts  and  her  flirtations  to  nurse  her  when 
she  was  ‘ a little  ill,’  and  to  teach  her  needlework  when  she  was 

B b 2 


372 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1760 


well.  All  the  servants  adored  her,  and  vied  with  each  other  to 
serve  her.  Presently  she  had  her  own  femme  de  chambre.  Every 
Sunday  Voltaire  and  his  niece  took  her  to  mass.  Voltaire  did 
not  only  preach  tolerance.  He  did  more  even  than  leave  her, 
when  she  prayed,  ‘ her  early  Heaven,  her  happy  views.’  He  made 
every  careful  provision,  as  he  had  said  he  would,  for  her  to  follow 
the  faith  of  her  fathers.  The  sneer  on  his  lips  and  the  scorn  in 
his  soul  died  as  he  looked  at  Marie  Corneille.  Trust,  simplicity, 
innocence,  appealed  not  in  vain  to  Voltaire,  as  they  have  appealed 
not  in  vain  to  far  worse  men.  There  is  a noble  touch  in  that 
confession  of  his  that,  though  he  loved  her  well  enough  to  set  a 
very  high  value  on  her  love  for  him,  he  liked  nothing  more  in 
her  than  her  unforgetting  attachment  to  her  father.  To  that 
father  (who  was,  it  may  be  added,  a very  cavilling  and  trying- 
person)  he  wrote  himself,  thanking  him  with  the  finest  tact  and 
delicacy  for  a loan  so  delightful,  and  repeatedly  congratulating 
himself  on  being  the  host  of  so  charming  a visitor.  Voltaire 
certainly  knew  how  to  confer  a favour. 

It  was  not  unnatural  that,  when  the  news  of  this  adoption 
reached  them,  the  devout  should  call  out  loudly  at  a lamb  being 
entrusted  to  such  a wolf.  But  it  is  noticeable  that  none  of  the 
devout  offered  to  support  the  lamb  in  their  own  sheepfold. 
They  only  demanded  a lettre  de  cachet  to  get  her  away  from 
Voltaire. 

There  was  another  trouble  too.  Freron,  though  he  had 
helped  her  himself,  was  bitterly  angry  and  jealous  at  Voltaire’s 
adoption.  In  his  ‘ Literary  Year  ’ he  inserted,  with  a very 
venomous  pen,  calumnies  on  her  father,  and  on  the  mode  of  edu- 
cation Voltaire  was  providing  for  her.  Without  the  smallest 
ground  for  such  a charge  he  declared  that  her  tutor  was  to  be 
Lecluse,  the  dentist  and  amateur  actor,  whom  Freron  represented 
as  a kind  of  disreputable  mountebank. 

Voltaire  instantly  rose  to  the  provocation.  He  always  rose. 
But  when  its  subject  was  an  innocent  girl,  he  may  be  forgiven 
that  he  was  more  furious  than  wise.  He  demanded  justice  from 
the  minister  Malesherbes,  and  a formal  apology  from  Freron  : and 
failed  to  get  either.  So  there  appeared  first  a cutting  epigram, 
and  then  an  exceedingly  scurrilous  publication  called  1 Anecdotes 
of  Fr6ron,?  which  Voltaire  vehemently  denied,  but  which  that 


Mt.  66] 


THE  BATTLE  OF  COMEDIES 


373 


very  best  and  most  trustworthy  of  all  possible  editors,  Beuchot, 
has  included,  not  the  less,  in  his  Works. 

Freron’s  calumnies  were  not  without  effect.  They  lost  Marie 
Corneille  a husband  : who  must  have  been  well  lost,  since  the 
sting  of  a wasp  frightened  him  away. 

Meanwhile  the  life  at  Ferney  and  Delices  went  a busy  and 
tranquil  way  ; and  Papa  Voltaire  began  to  cast  about  in  his  mind 
the  means  for  providing  a dot  for  his  daughter. 


374 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1760-61 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

BUILDING  A CHURCH,  AND  ENDOWING  A DAUGHTER 

The  novel  of  the  winter  season  of  1760-61,  was  ‘ The  New 
Eloisa,’  by  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  write  a life  of  Rousseau  or  of  Voltaire 
without  comparing  them.  Voltaire,  all  sharp  sense  : and  Rousseau 
all  hot  sensibility ; Rousseau,  visionary,  dreamer,  sensualist, 
sentimentalist,  madman : and  Voltaire,  the  sanest  genius  who 
ever  lived,  practical,  businesslike,  brilliant,  easy,  sardonic.  The 
one’s  name  stands  as  a synonym  for  a biting  wit,  the  other’s  for 
a wild  passion. 

Yet  they  had  much  in  common.  Both  belonged  to  the  great 
philosophic  party.  In  the  burning  zeal  of  their  mutual  hatred  of 
V inf  time  Voltaire  sometimes  lost  his  head  ; and  Rousseau  lost  his 
heart.  Both  fought  tooth  and  nail  all  their  lives  for  Tolerance 
and  for  Liberty.  Both  foresaw  that  stupendous  change  called 
the  French  Revolution,  and  both  foresaw  it  bloodless,  serene,  and 
glorious. 

By  January  21,  1761,  ‘ Eloisa,’  which  had  been  written  in  the 
little  cottage  Madame  d’Epinay  had  lent  Rousseau  in  the  Mont- 
morency forest,  had  been  read  at  Ferney. 

Rousseau  had  already  been  in  opposition  to  Voltaire  both  on 
the  subject  of  a theatre  in  Geneva,  and  on  optimism. 

But  still,  though  they  had  greatly  disagreed,  they  had  not 
been  (‘  Candide  ’ notwithstanding)  exactly  enemies. 

And  then,  in  the  October  of  1760  Voltaire  had  written  gaily  on 
the  theatre  subject — ‘Jean  Jacques  showed  that  a theatre  was 
unsuitable  to  Geneva  : and  I,  I built  one.’  Jean  Jacques  was  at 
once  too  womanish,  too  impulsive,  and  too  vain  to  keep  long  on 
good  terms  with  a cynical  person  who  could  airily  agree  to  differ 
in  that  way.  He  admired  his  rival’s  ‘ beaux  talents ,’  but  he  was 


JEt.  66-67] 


BUILDING  A CHURCH 


375 


jealous  of  them.  He  was  jealous,  too,  of  his  power  and  influence 
in  Geneva.  By  the  June  of  1760  he  had  worked  himself  into 
something  like  hating  this  Voltaire ; and,  Rousseau-like,  he  sat 
down  and  wrote  a letter  to  tell  him  so.  Voltaire,  still  perfectly 
cool,  observed  to  Theriot  on  June  26  that  Jean  Jacques  had 
become  quite  mad.  ‘ It  is  a great  pity.’ 

And  then  came  ‘ The  New  Eloisa.’ 

That  tissue  of  absurdities  and  genius,  of  fine,  false  sentiments 
and  highly  ridiculous  social  views — set  forth  with  the  warmth, 
the  energy,  and  the  passion  which  are  Rousseau’s  alone — would 
in  any  case  have  aroused  Voltaire’s  contempt. 

But  when  he  added  to  it  their  present  differences  on  the 
theatre  topic,  and  their  past  differences  on  optimism,  and  the 
childish  rancour  of  Rousseau’s  last  letter — above  all,  when  he 
saw  that  those  owls,  the  public,  opened  their  stupid  eyes  and  were 
quite  dazzled  and  delighted  with  the  sham  glitter  of  this  false 
romance  about  the  highly  improper  Julie  and  her  no  more  re- 
spectable tutor — his  ire  was  roused. 

He  dubbed  ‘ Eloisa  ’ ‘ foolish,  bourgeois , impudent,  and  weari- 
some.’ It  was  ‘one  of  the  infamies  of  the  century’  to  have 
admired  it.  And  he  wrote  to  Theriot : ‘No  novel  of  Jean  Jacques, 
if  you  please.  I have  read  him  for  my  misfortune  ; and  it  would 
have  been  for  his  if  I had  the  time  to  say  what  I thought  of  it.’ 

The  last  words  were  only  the  blind  which  hoodwinked  nobody. 
‘ There  is  time  for  everything  if  one  likes  to  use  it.’  Staying  at 
Ferney  at  the  moment  was  the  Marquis  de  Ximenes,  ex-admirer 
of  Madame  Denis  and  now  forgiven  that  unpleasant  little  business 
of  the  stolen  manuscript  of  a few  years  back. 

There  quickly  appeared  four  letters  on  (or  rather  against) 
‘ The  New  Eloisa,’  the  first  of  which  bore  the  signature  of  the 
Marquis,  and  all  of  which  bore  unmistakable  traits  of  a famous 
style. 

Voltaire  denied  them,  according  to  custom. 

But  it  was  the  denial  your  rire. 

The  wise  d’Alembert  wrote  and  remonstrated  with  his  friend 
for  ‘declaiming  openly’  against  Jean  Jacques,  who,  after  all, 
was  of  their  party  and  with  a warmth  and  ardour  which  might 
serve  it  well. 

But  Rousseau  had  begun  to  sting  and  irritate  the  sensitive 


736 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIKE 


[1761 


skin  of  his  great  rival,  and  would  by  no  means  be  shaken  off.  In 
the  October  of  1761  Voltaire  said  that  Jean  Jacques  wrote  about 
once  a fortnight  to  incite  the  Genevan  ministers  against  theatres. 

In  the  meantime,  fortunately  for  them  both,  Voltaire  had 
interests  which  eclipsed  even  that  excited  by  a sentimental  rival’s 
annoying  Puritanism  or  long  winded  romance. 

He  was  fighting  the  Jesuits  and  building  a church. 

On  January  1,  1761,  he  wrote  to  tell  Helvetius  that  he  had 
reclaimed  from  the  Jesuits  of  Ornex,  his  neighbours,  with  whom 
he  had  hitherto  been  on  good  terms,  the  estate  belonging  to  six 
poor  brothers,  of  which  the  Jesuits  had  robbed  them  during  their 
minority. 

To  compass  this  act  the  Jesuits  had  allied  themselves  with 
a Calvinistic  Councillor  of  State  of  Geneva.  There  is  no  doubt 
at  all  that  Voltaire  delighted,  as  he  said,  in  thus  triumphing  over 
both  Ignatius  and  Calvin ; or  that  the  defeat  of  the  Jesuits  gave 
him  as  much  pleasure  as  the  victory  of  the  brothers.  But  when 
it  is  added  that  he  had  lent  those  brothers,  without  interest,  all 
the  money  necessary  to  reclaim  their  heritage ; that  he  spent 
on  them  an  incalculable  amount  of  that  time  which  was  more 
valuable  to  him  than  any  money,  it  must  be  allowed  that  if  his 
motives  were  mixed,  good  preponderated  in  the  mixture. 

And  then  he  turned  his  extraordinary  mind  towards  building 
a church. 

The  church  scheme  had  been  on  the  tapis  as  far  back  as  the 
August  of  1760.  The  truth  was  that  the  old  church  at  Ferney 
was  not  only  very  hideous  and  tumbledown,  but  spoilt  a very 
good  view  from  the  chateau.  If  churches  there  must  be  to 
enslave  men’s  souls,  thinks  Voltaire,  why,  they  need  not  offend 
their  eyes  as  well.  I will  build  a new  one ! 

Every  Sunday  it  was  now  his  habit  not  only  to  attend  mass 
with  Marie  Corneille  and  Madame  Denis,  but  to  be  duly  incensed 
thereat  as  lord  of  the  manor.  He  also  looked  after  his  poor,  and 
behaved  very  much  as  a conscientious  country  landowner  ought 
to  behave,  but  as,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  he  very  seldom  did. 

But  still  this  sceptic,  this  freethinker,  this  wicked  person  who 
had  just  successfully  brought  home  to  the  good  Jesuits  an  accu- 
sation of  robbery,  was  certainly  a character  whose  every  act  the 
devout  might  well  eye  suspiciously. 


Mt.  67] 


BUILDING  A CHURCH 


377 


Voltaire  cautiously  obtained  the  permission  of  the  Bishop  of 
Annecy  to  change  the  site  of  the  church,  and  then  began  pulling 
down  with  a will.  He  was  to  bear  all  the  expenses  himself.  If 
the  deed  was  not  strictly  right  in  law,  it  was  so  excellent  in 
morals  that  it  had  been  done  with  impunity  hundreds  of  times 
before. 

In  the  rasing  operations,  part  of  the  churchyard  wall  had  to 
be  to  taken  down,  and  a large  cross,  which  dominated  the  church- 
yard, removed. 

All  would  have  been  well,  however,  if  this  unlucky  Voltaire 
had  not  had,  as  usual,  an  enemy  on  the  spot.  When  he  first 
came  to  Ferney,  it  will  be  remembered  that  he  had  successfully 
fought  Ancian,  the  cure  of  the  neighbouring  parish  of  Moens, 
for  a tithe  of  which  Ancian  had  long  deprived  the  poor  of  the 
neighbourhood.  Ancian,  whom  Voltaire  vigorously  described  as 
‘ brutal  as  a horse,  cross-grained  as  a mule,  and  cunning  as  a 
fox,’  had  not  forgiven  that  affront  easily.  But  worse  was  to  come. 

On  December  28,  1760,  a young  man,  wounded  and  nearly 
bleeding  to  death,  had  been  brought  to  the  doors  of  Ferney. 
Voltaire  did  not  only  take  him  in  and  care  for  his  body.  With 
that  passionate  love  of  fair-play  which  was  so  fatal  to  the  ease 
and  comfort  of  his  life,  he  determined  to  ferret  out  the  rights  of 
the  case  and  get  justice  done. 

It  appeared  that  three  young  men  had  been  supping,  after  a 
day’s  hunting,  at  the  house  of  a woman  of  whom  Ancian  was 
commonly  reported  the  lover.  Ancian,  and  ‘ some  peasants  his 
accomplices,’  rushed  in  and  violently  attacked  the  three  men, 
nearly  killing  Decroze,  the  one  who  had  been  brought  to  Ferney. 

Here  is  a pretty  state  of  things  ! says  Voltaire.  A priest  who 
is  not  only  thief  but  murderer  as  well ! He  set  to  work  at  once. 
He  moved  heaven,  earth,  and  the  authorities  to  get  M.  Ancian 
‘employment  in  the  galleys.’  He  found  out  Decroze’s  father 
and  sister.  He  tried  to  rouse  the  father’s  timidity  and  apathy 
to  action.  The  sister  told  him,  on  her  oath,  that  her  confessor 
had  refused  her  absolution  if  she  did  not  force  that  father  to 
renounce  his  son’s  cause. 

By  January  8,  1761,  Voltaire  was  passionately  complaining 
that  a ‘ feeble  procedure  ’ against  the  criminal  had  hardly 
been  begun.  The  province  was  divided  on  the  subject.  All 


378 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1761 


Voltaire’s  letters  of  the  time  are  full  of  it.  But  Ancian  was 
protected  by  his  order.  It  was  thought,  as  it  has  been  often 
thought  before  and  since,  that  the  scandal  of  punishing  the  crime 
would  be  greater  than  the  scandal  of  leaving  it  unpunished. 

Ancian  had  to  pay  Decroze  a sum  down ; but  he  kept  his 
living,  and  nursed  his  revenge. 

When  he  saw  M.  de  Voltaire  pulling  down  the  churchyard 
wall  and  removing  the  cross,  he  knew  that  the  time  had  come. 
He  assured  his  brother  cure  of  Ferney  and  the  simple  people  of 
the  place  that  this  atheist  of  a Voltaire  had  profaned  their  church  ; 
that  he  had  not  only  moved  the  cross  without  first  fulfilling 
the  usual  formalities,  but  had  cried  out,  1 Take  away  that  gibbet ! ’ 
Ancian,  therefore,  on  the  biblical  principle  of  an  eye  for  an  eye 
and  a tooth  for  a tooth,  denounced  Voltaire  to  the  ecclesiastical 
judge  of  Gex  as  guilty  of  sacrilege  and  impiety,  and  involved  him 
in  a ‘ criminal  suit  of  a most  violent  character.’ 

But  Ancian  did  not  know,  though  he  ought  to  have  known, 
the  sort  of  man  with  whom  he  had  to  deal.  Voltaire’s  blood 
was  up.  A criminal  lawsuit,  forsooth,  for  ‘ a foot  and  a half  of 
churchyard  and  two  mutton  cutlets  which  had  been  mistaken  for 
disinterred  bones  ’ ! There  was  an  angry  note  in  that  laugh 
which  meant  fight.  Further,  his  enemies  were  saying  publicly 
that  they  hoped  to  see  him  burned,  or  at  least  hanged,  for  the 
glory  of  God  and  the  edification  of  the  faithful ; and  meanwhile 
his  church-building  operations  were  stopped. 

It  was  an  old  principle  of  his  always  to  turn  their  own 
weapons  against  his  foes.  He  had  not  forgotten  it.  He  put 
himself  into  correspondence  with  an  able  ecclesiastical  lawyer  of 
Lyons.  He  read  up  ecclesiastical  histories,  and  ancient  volumes 
of  Church  law  ; and  then  suddenly  flung  at  the  head  of  the 
enemy  such  a mass  of  rules  and  precedents,  of  dreary  old  parallel 
cases  of  mouldering  decrees  which  councils  had  forgotten  to 
revoke,  of  longwinded  formulas  and  bylaws  whose  existence  and 
orthodoxy  were  as  indisputable  as  they  had  been  unheeded,  and  of 
authorities  who  were  infinitely  sound,  obscure,  and  confusing — 
that  the  priestly  party  put  its  hands  to  its  ears,  cried  ‘ Peccavi ! ’ 
and  confessed  itself  beaten  on  its  own  ground. 

In  the  meanwhile  its  surprising  little  foe,  who  ‘ passionately 
loved  to  be  master,’  had  rased  the  whole  church  at  Ferney  to  the 


^Et.  67] 


BUILDING  A CHURCH 


379 


ground,  ‘ in  reply  to  the  complaints  of  having  taken  down  half  of  it/ 
had  removed  the  altars,  the  confessional  boxes,  and  the  fonts,  and 
sent  his  parishioners  to  attend  mass  elsewhere. 

To  crown  all,  and  to  leave  nothing  undone  that  could  be  done, 
by  June  21  he  had  forwarded  the  plan  of  his  church  to  the  Pope 
and  applied  to  his  Holiness  for  a bull  granting  him  absolute 
power  over  his  churchyard,  permission  for  his  labourers  to  work 
on  fete  days,  instead  ‘ of  getting  drunk  in  honour  of  the  Saints  7 
according  to  custom,  and  for  sacred  relics  to  place  in  the  church. 

The  letters  to  Rome  are,  very  unfortunately,  lost.  But, 
through  Choiseul,  they  reached  there;  and  the  requests  were 
granted  in  part.  On  October  26,  1761,  the  Holy  Father  sent  a 
piece  of  the  hair  shirt  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi — the  patron  saint 
of  Francis  Marie  Arouet.  On  the  same  day,  in  tardy  recognition 
for  the  dedication  of  ‘ Tancred/  came  a present  of  the  portrait  of 
Madame  de  Pompadour.  ‘ So  you  see/  wrote  Voltaire,  ‘ I am  all 
right  both  for  this  world  and  the  next.7 

When  his  church  was  finished  he  inscribed  on  it  Deo  Solo 
(sic),  which  by  September  14,  1761,  he  had  altered  to  Deo  erexit 
Voltaire.  He  was  fond  of  saying  that  it  was  the  only  church  in 
the  universe  which  was  dedicated  to  God  alone,  and  not  to  a saint. 
‘ For  my  part  I had  rather  build  for  the  Master  than  for  the 
servants.7 

He  had  designed  his  own  tomb  jutting  out  from  the  wall  of 
the  church.  4 The  wicked  will  say  that  I am  neither  inside  nor 
out.7 

In  March  a public  event  distracted  his  thoughts  for  a moment 
from  ‘ Eloisa,7  Ancian,  and  the  church  building.  The  Dauphin’s 
eldest  son  died ; and  Pompignan,  as  Historiographer  of  France, 
lifted  his  diminished  head  from  Montauban  and  from  those 
‘ mountains  of  ridicule  7 which  covered  him,  and  wrote  a eulogium 
of  the  little  boy,  which  alas ! for  foolish  Pompignan,  was  also 
another  attack  on  the  philosophers.  Voltaire  waited  a little. 
Then  he  wrote  two  pieces  of  ‘ murderous  brevity 7 — the  4 Ah  ! 
Ahs  ! 7 and  the  1 Fors.7 

Down  went  the  head  of  Pompignan  again.  If  it  even  peeped 
up  for  a moment,  which  it  still  did  now  and  then,  Ferney  shot  an 
arrow  at  it  from  the  richest  quiver  and  with  the  deadliest  aim  in 
the  world. 


380  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1761 

But  he  had  better  things  to  do  now  than  hitting  an  enemy 
who  was  down. 

That  dear  spoilt  daughter  of  the  house,  who  might  interrupt 
even  the  chess  or  the  verse  reading  of  vif  Papa  Voltaire  with 
impunity — who  was  pretty  and  naive  enough  to  do  anything  in 
the  world  she  liked  with  him — still  had  no  dot. 

On  April  10,  1761,  Voltaire  wrote  to  Duclos,  secretary  of  the 
Academy,  and  proposed  that  he  (Voltaire)  should  edit  and  annotate 
Corneille's  works,  in  an  edition  of  the  classics  then  appearing 
under  the  patronage  of  the  Academy,  for  the  benefit  of  the  great 
Peter’s  great-niece. 

To  say  that  Voltaire  put  his  whole  heart,  soul,  and  body  into 
the  thing  and  worked  at  it  like  a galley  slave,  and  worked  till 
he  made  all  Europe  work  too,  is  no  exaggeration.  He  began  by 
getting  up  a subscription,  which  remains  one  of  the  best  managed, 
if  not  the  best  managed,  and  certainly  the  most  successful  thing 
of  its  kind  ever  undertaken.  He  advanced  all  money  for  pre- 
liminary expenses  himself.  The  King  of  France,  the  Empress 
of  Russia,  the  Emperor  and  Empress  of  Austria,  Choiseul,  and 
Madame  de  Pompadour  figured  imposingly  and  attractively  on 
his  list.  The  nobles  and  notables  of  France,  courtiers,  farmers- 
general,  and  literary  men  quickly  followed  suit.  In  England 
the  givers  included  good  Queen  Charlotte,  Lords  Chesterfield, 
Lyttelton,  Palmer,  Spencer,  and  the  great  Mr.  Pitt.  To  Pitt, 
Voltaire  wrote,  in  the  English  he  was  always  clever  enough  to 
remember,  when  expedient ; and  Pitt  replied  favourably. 

By  May,  only  a month  after  the  subscription  was  started,  and 
before  a single  copy  of  the  work  was  ready,  enough  money  had 
come  in  to  afford  Marie  Corneille  a yearly  income  of  fifteen 
hundred  francs. 

Voltaire  was  far  from  finding  the  labour  congenial.  To  the 
vigour  of  his  creative  genius  work  that  was  so  largely  mechanical 
soon  became  irritating  and  tiresome.  Still,  it  consoled  him,  as 
he  said,  for  those  public  disasters  in  the  Seven  Years’  War  which 
were  fast  making  France  the  fable  of  the  nations  and  the  laughing- 
stock of  Europe  ; and  presently  for  that  crushing  defeat  of  the 
French  by  Frederick  the  Great  at  Villinghausen  on  July  15. 

That  he  was  an  excellent  commentator  is  proved  by  the  fact  that 
his  Commentary  remains  unrivalled,  and  is  still  the  text-book  on 


JEt.  67] 


ENDOWING  A DAUGHTER 


381 


Corneille.  With  an  ear  as  exquisitely  delicate  for  a harmony  as 
a discord,  with  that  single-minded  love  of  good  literature  which 
equally  prevented  him  being  flatterer  or  caviller,  Voltaire  was  the 
critic  who,  like  the  poet,  is  born,  not  made.  He  admired  warmly  ; 
but  he  blamed  candidly.  ‘ It  is  true  that  Corneille  is  a sacred 
authority ; but  I am  like  Father  Simon,  who,  when  the 
Archbishop  of  Paris  asked  him  what  he  was  doing  to  prepare 
himself  for  the  priesthood,  replied,  “ Monseigneur,  I am  criticising 
the  Bible.”  ’ 

When  Martin  Sherlock  was  at  Ferney  in  1776  he  observed 
that  the  English  preferred  Corneille  to  Racine.  ‘ That,’  said 
Voltaire,  ‘is  because  the  English  do  not  know  enough  of  the 
French  language  to  feel  the  beauties  of  Racine’s  style  or  the 
harmony  of  his  versification.  Corneille  pleases  them  better 
because  he  is  more  striking  ; but  Racine  for  the  French  because 
he  has  more  delicacy  and  tenderness.’ 

When  the  Commentary  was  finished  it  numbered  many 
volumes,  and  ‘ served  to  marry  two  girls,  which  never  before 
happened  to  a Commentary,’  said  the  Commentator,  1 and  never 
will  again.’ 

By  a peculiarly  delicate  thought,  poor  literary  men  received 
copies  as  gifts. 

The  autumn  of  1761  was  not  dull  at  Ferney.  Among  the 
visitors  were  Abbe  Coyer  and  Lauraguais,  wit  and  playwright, 
and  one  of  those  highly  unsatisfactory  clever  people  who  can  do 
everything,  and  do  nothing. 

Besides  the  visitors,  the  autumn  was  marked  by  the  progress 
of  the  quarrel  with  de  Brosses,  from  whom  Voltaire  had  bought 
Tourney,  and  with  whom  he  was  still  deeply  engaged  in  a lawsuit 
for  ‘ fourteen  cords  of  firewood.’ 

The  man  who  gave  a home  to  d’Aumard,  to  Marie  Corneille, 
and  to  Father  Adam,  and  who  pensioned  his  poor  relations  with- 
out in  the  least  accounting  it  to  himself  for  righteousness,  was 
incredibly  sharp  and  mean  over  this  firewood  with  de  Brosses, 
and  wasted  his  time  and  his  talents  in  the  fight.  The  details  of 
the  quarrel  are  long,  uninteresting,  and  profitless.  But  it  must 
in  justice  be  said  that  it  shows  Voltaire  6 at  his  very  worst : 
insolent,  undignified,  low-minded,  and  untruthful.’  Besides 
quarrelling  with  de  Brosses,  with  Ancian,  and  Rousseau,  editing 


382 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIEE 


[1761-62 


Corneille,  writing  4 Peter  the  Great/  revising  the  4 Essay  on  the 
Manners  and  Mind  of  Nations/  and  looking  after  three  estates, 
this  wonderful  man  also  found  time  in  1761  for  his  usual  gigantic 
correspondence,  and  to  write  two  plays.  The  correspondence 
alone  comprises  letters  to  a king  and  cardinals,  prime  ministers, 
and  actresses,  savants  and  salonieres , besides  letters  to  old  friends 
like  Panpan  and  Madame  de  Champbonin  ; letters  in  English  and 
Italian,  and  in  rhyme  ; and  letters  from  people  he  had  never  seen. 
In  this  July  a burgomaster  of  Middleton  had  written  to  inquire 
of  him  if  there  is  a God  ; if,  supposing  there  be  one,  He  troubles 
about  man  ; if  Matter  is  eternal ; if  it  can  think  ; and  if  the  soul 
is  immortal.  The  burgomaster  added  that  he  would  like  an 
answer  by  return  of  post.  4 I receive  such  letters  every  week/ 
Voltaire  wrote  to  Madame  du  Deffand.  4 1 have  a pleasant  life.’ 

From  1760  until  1768  he  was  also  writing  constantly  to  that 
Damilaville  who  was  so  steady  a foe  of  V infame,  and  who  took 
Theriot’s  place  as  Voltaire’s  Parisian  correspondent.  Theriot  had 
long  sunk  into  a goodnatured  parasite  of  any  rich  man  who 
would  give  him  a good  dinner  and  an  idle  life  ; while  Damilaville, 
if  he  was  heavy  and  mannerless,  as  Grimm  said,  was  a patient 
and  tireless  disciple ; who  ran  all  Voltaire’s  errands  in  Paris  for 
him;  despatched  to  Ferney  constant  packets  of  books,  manu- 
scripts, and  news  ; and,  in  brief,  loved  and  worked  for  Voltaire  as 
sincerely  as  he  loathed,  and  worked  against,  Vinfame . 

On  October  20,  1761,  Voltaire  wrote  to  tell  his  Angels  that 
the  fever  took  him  on  Sunday  and  did  not  leave  him  till  Saturday 
— which,  being  interpreted,  meant  that  at  sixty-seven  years  old 
he  had  composed  in  six  days  the  tragedy  of  4 Olympie.’ 

But  even  in  a Voltaire — a Voltaire  of  whom  Joubert  justly 
said  that  4 his  mind  was  ripe  twenty  years  sooner  than  other 
men’s,  and  that  he  kept  it,  in  all  its  powers,  thirty  years  later  ’ — 
such  quick  work  could  not  mean  his  best  work. 

The  Angels  recommended  revision. 

4 It  was  written  in  six  days,’  wrote  Voltaire  to  a friend  whose 
opinion  he  desired.  4 Then  the  author  should  not  have  rested  on 
the  seventh,’  was  the  answer.  4 He  did,  and  repented  of  his 
work,’  replied  Voltaire.  The  play  written  in  six  days  took  six 
months  to  correct. 

In  the  meantime,  and  for  fear  one  should  get  idle  and  the 


iET.  67-68]  ENDOWING  A DAUGHTER 


383 


brain  rust,  he  flung  on  to  paper  a versified  comedy  called 
‘ Seigneurial  Rights’  (‘Le  Droit  du  Seigneur’).  It  had  been 
rehearsed  at  home  by  December  17.  It  was  to  pose  as  the  work 
of  one  Picardet,  an  Academician  of  Dijon,  until  its  success  was 
established. 

But  once  again  Voltaire  had  to  reckon  with  an  old  enemy. 
Crebillon  of  eighty-eight  was  still  envious,  and  now  censor  of 
plays.  He  recognised  the  style  of  Picardet,  Academician  of 
Dijon,  and  refused  to  license  his  play  unless  a scene  from  his 
(Crebillon’s)  hand  was  added.  Chafing  Voltaire  called  this  scene 
a carnage  of  all  his  best  points. 

Early  in  the  new  year  1762  Crebillon  died,  at  peace  with  all 
the  world,  it  was  said,  even  his  profligate  of  a son — and  M.  de 
Voltaire.  But  Voltaire  had  too  much  to  forgive  in  return.  He 
wrote  the  ‘ Eloge  de  Crebillon,’  and  once  more  peaceful  d’Alembert 
had  to  complain  of  his  vif  friend  losing  his  temper — ‘a  satire 
under  the  name  of  a eulogy.’  ‘ 1 am  sorry  you  chose  the  moment 
of  his  death  to  throw  stones  on  his  corpse.’  4 He  had  better 
have  been  left  to  rot  of  himself : it  would  not  have  taken  long.’ 

D’Alembert  was  right,  as  he  had  been  before. 

Meanwhile  ‘ Seigneurial  Rights  ’ had  been  produced  on 
January  18,  1762,  and  had  met  with  a success  far  above  its 
slender  merits. 

January  also  saw  another  temporary  resurrection  of  poor 
Pompignan.  It  was  Voltaire  himself  who  had  provoked  the  poor 
man  to  turn  in  his  grave  this  time,  by  writing  to  a popular  tune 
and  in  a catching  metre  ‘ A Hymn  Sung  at  the  Village  of 
Pompignan.’ 

This  he  sent  round  to  his  friends  with  a guitar  accompani- 
ment. It  became  the  air  of  Paris  ; and  the  street  boys,  it  is 
said,  sang  it  at  the  Pompignans  as  they  passed.  A little  later 
Voltaire  wrote  a burlesque  ‘ Journey  of  M.  le  Franc  de  Pompignan 
from  Pompignan  to  Fontainebleau,’  and  replied  to  an  attack 
Brother  Aaron  de  Pompignan,  Bishop  of  Puy,  had  been  foolhardy 
enough  to  make  upon  the  philosophers,  with  such  a running  fire 
of  pamphlets,  epigrams,  and  irony  as  might  have  slain  a far 
abler  foe. 

And  so  exeunt  the  Pompignans  for  ever. 

In  January,  too,  Voltaire  published  a pamphlet  called  ‘The 


384 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1762 


Extract  of  the  Opinions  of  Jean  Meslier,’  Meslier  having  been 
a cure  who  left  at  his  death  papers  seeking  to  prove  the  falsehood 
of  the  religion  which  he  had  professed.  Voltaire  put  it  into 
shape.  It  was  a curious  and  a very  human  document.  He  was 
not  a little  disgusted  that  ‘ tepid  ’ Paris  did  not  receive  it  with 
more  enthusiasm. 

But  if  Paris  was  tepid,  that  cold  King  seemed  to  be  getting 
a little  warmer.  Voltaire  wrote  to  tell  Duclos  on  January  20  that 
his  Majesty  had  restored  to  him  an  old  pension. 

‘ What  will  Freron  say  to  that  ? What  will  Pornpignan  ? ’ 
wrote  the  delighted  pensioner  naively.  There  was  also  a rumour 
that  his  Majesty  has  been  pleased  to  recall  M.  de  Voltaire.  That 
was  false.  And  Voltaire,  since  he  could  not  reach  the  grapes, 
took  the  very  sensible  role  of  declaring  that  they  were  sour.  No 
doubt  they  really  were.  The  fruit  of  his  own  labours  was  at 
least  far  sweeter.  To  work  in  the  Ferney  garden  with  Lambert, 
his  stupid  gardener — ‘ my  privateer  ’ — was  safer  too.  1 Love  like 
a fool  when  you  are  young — work  like  a devil  when  you  are  old/ 
was  one  of  Voltaire’s  rules  of  life.  He  had  to  his  hand  now 
work,  beside  which  even  gardening  at  Ferney  was  dull  and  use- 
less, and  waiting  in  a king’s  antechamber  a shame  and  a 
contempt. 

On  March  10,  1762,  Jean  Calas  was  broken  on  the  wheel. 


VOLTAIRE 

From  the  Bust  by  Houdon. 


^Et.  68] 


385 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

THE  AFFAIR  OF  CALAS 

In  1761  and  1762  Toulouse,  the  capital  of  Languedoc  and  the 
seventh  city  of  France,  was  one  of  the  most  priest-ridden  in  the 
kingdom.  The  anniversary  of  that  supreme  crime  of  history, 
the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  was  always  legally  celebrated 
as  a two  days’  festival.  The  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes 
had  been  commemorated  by  two  frescoes  erected  at  the  public 
expense.  In  Toulouse  no  Protestant  could  be  a lawyer,  a 
physician,  a surgeon,  an  apothecary,  a bookseller,  a grocer,  or 
a printer  ; he  could  not  keep  either  a Protestant  clerk  or  a Pro- 
testant servant ; and  in  1748  an  unhappy  woman  had  been  fined 
three  thousand  francs  for  acting  as  a midwife  without  having 
first  become  a Roman  Catholic. 

The  city  was  further  celebrated  for  its  monastic  orders,  the 
White,  the  Black,  and  the  Grey  Penitents  ; and  for  a collection 
of  relics  which  included  bones  of  the  children  massacred  by 
Herod  and  a piece  of  the  robe  of  the  Virgin. 

In  such  a place,  not  the  less,  Jean  Calas,  a Protestant  shop- 
keeper, had  lived  honoured  and  respected  for  forty  years. 

On  the  evening  of  October  18,  1761,  he,  his  family,  and 
a young  friend  sat  at  supper  in  his  house  over  his  shop,  at  No.  16 
Rue  des  Filatiers. 

Jean  Calas,  the  father,  was  sixty-three  years  old,  and  rather 
infirm ; kind,  benevolent,  and  serene ; anything  but  a bigot,  in 
that  Louis,  one  of  his  sons,  who  was  a Toulouse  apprentice,  had 
embraced  the  Roman  faith  with  the  full  consent  of  his  father,  who 
supposed  the  matter  to  be  one  in  which  each  must  judge  for  himself. 

Madame  Calas,  though  of  English  extraction,  was  an  excellent 
type  of  the  best  kind  of  French  bourgeoise — practical,  vigorous? 
alert — aged  about  forty-five. 

0 c 


386 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1762 


Peter,  the  second  son,  was  an  amiable  but  rather  weak  youth 
of  about  five-and-twenty.  There  were  two  daughters,  Rose  and 
Nanette,  who  were  away  from  home  upon  this  particular  evening, 
as  was  also  Louis  (who  was  still  in  receipt  of  a money  allowance 
from  his  father) ; and  Donat,  the  youngest  boy,  who  was  living 
at  Nimes. 

Mark  Anthony,  the  eldest  son  of  the  family,  was  the  only  un- 
satisfactory person  in  it.  Only  twenty-eight  years  old,  he  was 
one  of  those  gloomy  and  discontented  characters  who,  the  world 
being  ‘ a looking-glass  which  gives  back  to  every  man  the  reflec- 
tion of  his  own  face/  saw  all  life  en  noir. 

His  character  had  been  further  soured  by  the  discovery  that 
the  profession  he  had  set  his  heart  on  was  not  open  to  a Pro- 
testant ; and  that  he  could  not  be  admitted  to  the  Bar  without 
producing  a certificate  from  his  cure  declaring  him  a Catholic. 

Mark  Anthony  endeavoured  to  gain  this  certificate  by  simply 
suppressing  his  Protestantism.  But  he  failed.  Change  his 
religion  he  would  not.  If  there  was  a bigot  among  the  Calas,  he 
was  the  one.  He  alone  of  the  family  had  bitterly  opposed  the 
conversion  of  Louis. 

Another  situation  he  desired  he  had  to  give  up  through  his 
father’s  lack  of  capital.  He  grew  more  and  more  morose.  He 
hung  about  the  cafes  and  the  billiard  saloons,  bitter  and  idle.  In 
a theatrical  company  he  had  joined  he  would  declaim,  it  is  said, 
Hamlet’s  monologue  on  death,  and  other  pieces  dealing  with 
suicide,  with  an  ‘inspired  warmth.’ 

The  establishment  at  the  Rue  des  Filatiers  was  completed  by 
Jeannette  Viguiere,  the  bonne  a tout  faire , an  ardent  Roman 
Catholic  and  the  faithful  friend  and  servant  of  the  family  for 
thirty  years. 

On  the  evening  of  this  October  18,  1761,  a friend  of  the 
Calas,  Gaubert  Lavaysse,  a youth  about  twenty,  came  in  unex- 
pectedly just  as  the  Calas  were  going  to  sit  down  to  supper. 

Hospitable  Madame  bade  Mark  Anthony,  who  was  sitting  in 
the  shop,  ‘plunged  in  thought,’  go  and  buy  some  Roquefort 
cheese  to  add  to  their  simple  meal.  He  did  as  he  was  asked.  He 
joined  the  party  at  supper  in  the  parlour,  next  to  the  kitchen. 
They  talked  on  indifferent  topics.  It  was  remembered  afterwards 
that  the  conversation,  among  other  things,  fell  upon  some 


Mt,  68] 


THE  AFFAIK  OF  GALAS 


387 


antiquities  to  be  seen  at  the  City  Hall,  and  that  Mark  Anthony 
spoke  of  them  too.  At  the  dessert,  about  eight  o’clock,  he  got  up, 
as  was  his  custom,  from  the  table  and  went  into  the  adjoining 
kitchen. 

‘ Are  you  cold,  M.  VAine  ? * said  Jeannette,  thinking  he  had 
come  to  warm  himself. 

‘ On  the  contrary — burning  hot/  he  answered.  And  he  went 

out. 

The  little  supper-party  meantime  had  gone  into  the  salon, 
where,  except  Peter,  who  went  to  sleep,  they  talked  until  a quarter 
to  ten,  when  Lavaysse  left.  Peter  was  roused  to  light  him  out. 

When  the  two  got  downstairs  into  the  shop  a sharp  cry  of 
alarm  reached  the  salon.  Jean  Calas  hurried  down.  Madame 
stood  at  the  top  of  the  stairs  for  a moment,  wondering  and 
trembling.  Then  she  went  down.  Lavaysse  came  out  of  the 
shop  and  gently  forced  her  upstairs,  saying  she  should  be  told  all. 

In  the  shop  Lavaysse  and  Peter  had  found  the  dead  body  of 
the  unhappy  Mark  Anthony  suspended  from  a wooden  instrument 
used  in  binding  bales  of  cloth,  which  the  poor  boy  had  placed 
between  two  doorposts,  and  on  which  he  had  hanged  himself. 
On  the  counter  lay  his  coat  and  vest,  neatly  folded. 

Jean  Calas  cut  the  cord,  lifted  the  body  down,  put  it  on  the 
ground,  and  used  all  possible  means  to  restore  life.  Impelled  by 
that  awful  sense  of  unknown  disaster,  Madame  and  Jeannette 
came  down  too,  and  with  tears,  and  calling  the  boy’s  name,  tried 
all  remedies — unavailingly. 

Meanwhile,  Calas  had  bidden  Peter  go  for  the  doctor.  He 
came,  by  name  one  Gorse,  but  he  could  do  nothing.  Then  Peter, 
beside  himself,  would  have  rushed  into  the  street  to  tell  their  mis- 
fortune abroad.  His  father  caught  hold  of  him  : ‘ Do  not  spread 
a report  that  he  has  killed  himself  ; at  least  save  our  honour.’ 

The  feeling  was  in  any  case  a perfectly  natural  one.  But 
how  much  more  natural  in  that  dreadful  day  when,  as  Calas  knew 
well,  the  body  of  a man  proven  a suicide  was  placed  naked  on  a 
hurdle  with  the  face  turned  to  the  ground,  drawn  thus  through 
the  streets,  and  then  hanged  on  a gibbet. 

Lavaysse  had  also  run  out  of  the  house.  Peter,  finding  him 
at  a neighbour’s,  told  him  to  deny  that  Mark  Anthony  had 
committed  suicide.  Lavaysse  agreed.  Voltaire  spoke  hereafter 

c c 2 


388  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1762 

of  that  decision  as  ‘ a natural  and  equitable  ’ one.  It  was.  But 
it  was  one  of  the  most  fatal  ever  uttered. 

The  neighbours  were  roused  by  now.  Many  rushed  in  to  give 
assistance.  Among  others  was  an  old  friend  of  the  family’s, 
Cazeing  by  name.  Clausade,  a lawyer,  said  the  police  ought  to 
be  fetched.  Lavaysse  ran  to  fetch  them. 

Meanwhile  a crowd  had  gathered  outside  the  house.  It  had 
the  characteristics  of  most  crowds — perhaps  of  all  French  crowds 
— it  was  intensely  excited ; it  was  exceedingly  inventive ; and  it 
would  follow  a leader  like  sheep.  What  had  happened  in  that 
house  ? In  1885  there  still  stood  over  the  door  a signboard  with 
the  inscription,  4 Jean  Calas,  Marchand  d’Indiennes.’  It  stood 
there  then.  Calas?  Calas?  Why,  Calas  was  a Huguenot. 
From  among  the  people  came  a word — one  of  those  idle  words 
for  which  men  shall  give  account  in  the  Day  of  Judgment — 
‘ These  Huguenots  have  killed  their  son  to  prevent  him  turning 
Catholic ! 5 The  idea  was  dramatic  and  pleased.  The  crowd 
caught  it  up.  It  was  the  match  to  the  faggot,  and  the  whole 
bonfire  was  ablaze  at  once. 

But  there  was  one  man  there  at  least,  David  de  Beaudrigue, 
one  of  the  chief  magistrates  of  the  city,  whom,  from  his  position, 
it  should  have  been  impossible  to  move  a hair’s  breadth  by  an 
irresponsible  word,  and  who  is  eternally  infamous  that,  hearing 
such  a cry,  he  believed  it.  But,  for  the  doom  of  Calas,  Beaudrigue 
was  both  bigot  and  fanatic.  It  has  been  well  said  by  Parton, 
one  of  Voltaire’s  biographers,  that  ‘if  the  words  had  blazed  . . . 
across  the  midnight  sky  in  letters  of  miraculous  fire,’  Beaudrigue 
‘ could  not  have  believed  them  with  more  complete  and  instan- 
taneous faith.’ 

He  hastened  into  the  house  with  his  officers  and  arrested 
every  person  in  it,  including  young  Lavaysse,  who  had  fought  his 
way  back  there  through  the  crowd,  and  Cazeing  the  friend. 
Through  the  ill-lit  streets,  thronged  with  an  excited  mob,  the 
little  party  were  taken  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  Mark  Anthony’s 
body  was  borne  on  a bier  before  them.  The  Calas  and  their 
friends  thought,  as  they  might  well  think,  that  they  were  only 
going  to  give  testimony  of  what  had  occurred.  Grief,  not  fear, 
was  in  their  hearts.  So  little  did  they  anticipate  not  returning 
to  their  house  that  evening  that  Peter  had  put  a lighted  candle 


Ml.  68] 


THE  AFFAIR  OF  CALAS 


389 


in  one  of  the  windows  to  light  them  when  they  came  back. 
‘ Blow  it  out/  said  David.  ‘ You  will  not  return  so  soon.’ 

On  every  step  of  that  dreadful  journey  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville 
the  ardent  imagination  of  that  southern  crowd  grew  hotter.  From 
saying  that  Calas  had  murdered  his  son  to  prevent  him  turning 
Catholic,  it  was  only  a step  to  the  assertion  that  among  the 
Huguenots  such  an  act  was  common,  encouraged,  and  esteemed 
a virtue.  Before  that  town  hall  was  reached  Mark  Anthony  had 
become  a martyr  to  the  true  faith ; and  Jean,  his  father,  was 
already  condemned  to  the  most  horrible  of  all  deaths,  on  the 
most  horrible  of  all  accusations. 

When  the  prisoners  reached  the  place  they  still  persisted  in 
that  most  natural  but  most  fatal  falsehood,  that  Mark  had  not 
committed  suicide.  It  still  did  not  occur  to  their  simplicity 
and  their  innocence  that  they  could  ever  be  accused  of  murdering 
one  so  dear  to  them.  They  were  soon  to  be  enlightened.  They 
were  separated,  locked,  with  irons  on  their  feet,  into  separate  cells. 
Jean  Calas  and  Peter  were  left  in  complete  darkness.  Cazeing 
was  soon  released.  But  Lavaysse,  the  unhappy  young  visitor, 
was  imprisoned  too.  On  the  days  following  they  were  each 
separately  examined  on  oath.  All  then  confessed  that  the  boy 
had  committed  suicide,  and  all  told  stories  which  tallied  with 
each  other.  Their  depositions  were  such  that  if  clear  evidence, 
reason,  and  justice  ever  appealed  to  bigots,  they  would  have  been 
liberated  at  once. 

But  David  had  been  occupying  his  time  in  still  further 
infuriating  the  people.  The  priests  seconded  him.  One  of  his 
own  colleagues  warned  him  not  to  go  so  fast. 

‘ 1 take  all  the  responsibility,’  he  answered.  ‘It  is  in  the 
cause  of  religion.’ 

It  is  noticeable  that,  in  his  bloody  haste,  and  though  he 
assumed  the  case  to  be  one  of  murder,  he  had  never  examined 
the  shop  at  the  Rue  des  Filatiers  to  see  if  it  bore  marks  of  a 
struggle,  or  the  clothes  of  the  supposed  murderers.  Yet  how 
could  it  be  thought  that  ‘ the  most  vigorous  man  in  the  province,’ 
eight-and-twenty  years  old,  would  allow  his  feeble  father  of 
sixty- three  to  strangle  and  hang  him  without  making  any  re- 
sistance? And  if  resistance  was  made,  where  were  the  rents 
and  the  bloodstains  ? 


890 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1762 


If,  too,  the  boy  had  been  killed  because  he  was  about  to  change 
bis  religion,  should  not  his  room  have  been  searched  for  some 
objects  of  Catholic  piety,  some  signs  of  the  dreadful  struggle  of 
the  soul  ? His  person  was  searched.  On  it  were  found  a few 
papers  of  ribald  songs. 

For  three  weeks  the  body  of  this  strange  martyr  was  kept 
embalmed,  lying  in  the  torture  chamber  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville. 
As  it  had  been  assumed  without  a shred  of  evidence  that  Mark 
Anthony  had  been  about  to  join  the  Roman  Church,  it  was  equally 
easy  to  assume  that  he  had  also  been  about  to  enter  one  of  the 
monastic  orders.  Popular  fancy  chose  the  White  Penitents  as 
the  order  of  Mark’s  intentions.  He  was  buried  on  a Sunday 
afternoon,  ‘with  more  than  royal  pomp,’  in  the  great  cathedral, 
and  with  the  full  and  splendid  rites  of  the  Roman  Church. 
Thousands  of  persons  were  present,  and  a few  days  after  a solemn 
service  for  the  repose  of  the  soul  of  their  Brother  was  held  by 
the  White  Penitents. 

For  three  successive  Sundays  from  the  pulpits  in  all  the 
churches  was  read  an  admonition  to  give  testimony,  ‘ by  hearsay 
or  otherwise,’  against  Jean  Calas. 

To  be  sure,  such  testimony  would  never  be  difficult  to  obtain 
in  any  case  or  in  any  place,  but  in  priest-ridden  Toulouse,  against 
Jean  Calas,  it  might  well  have  been  on  all  lips. 

After  the  five  prisoners  had  spent  five  months  in  separate 
dungeons,  chained  by  the  feet,  the  trial  began.  It  must  be 
remembered  that  of  the  accused  one  was  Jeannette,  an  ardent 
Roman  Catholic,  who  had  not  only  helped  to  convert  Louis,  but 
who  had  given  no  offence  to  his  Protestant  relatives  by  so  doing. 

On  March  9,  1762,  Jean  Calas  was  tried  first,  and  alone,  for 
the  murder  of  his  son  on  the  previous  October  18.  He  was  tried 
by  thirteen  members  of  the  Toulouse  Parliament,  who  held  ten 
sessions.  The  witnesses  against  him  were  of  this  kind  : a painter 
named  Mattei  said  that  his  wife  had  told  him  that  a person 
named  Mandrille  had  told  her  that  some  person  unnamed  had 
told  her  that  he  had  heard  Mark  Anthony’s  cries  at  the  other  end 
of  the  town.  Some  of  the  witnesses  against  Calas  disappeared 
before  the  trial  came  on,  feeling  the  strain  on  their  inventive 
powers  too  great. 

It  was  assumed  by  the  prosecution  that  Mark  Anthony  could 


Mt,  68] 


THE  AFFAIR  OF  CALAS 


891 


not  have  hanged  himself  in  the  place  where  the  Calas  swore  they 
had  found  him ; but,  as  has  been  noted,  the  prosecution  never 
went  to  see  the  place. 

For  the  prisoner,  on  the  other  hand,  was  the  most  over- 
whelming evidence. 

First,  it  was  the  most  unnatural  of  crimes.  Secondly,  it  was 
impossible  at  the  father’s  age  and  weakness  that  he  should  have 
murdered  his  strong  son  alone.  If  he  had  not  murdered  him 
alone,  it  must  have  been  with  the  assistance  of  the  family  party, 
of  whom  one  was  Jeannette,  the  ardent  Catholic,  and  another  was 
Lavaysse,  the  casual  visitor. 

The  testimony  of  all  these  people  for  Calas  agreed  absolutely 
— except  on  one  or  two  minor  and  wholly  immaterial  points. 

But,  in  the  case  of  this  prisoner,  it  was  not  merely  that  the 
law  of  his  day  declared  him  guilty  until  he  was  proved  innocent. 
Calas  was  declared  guilty  without  being  allowed  a chance  of 
proving  himself  innocent.  The  accused  was  never  then  permitted 
a counsel.  But  with  Calas,  the  people  sat  on  the  judgment  seat 
with  Pilate ; assumed  the  prisoner’s  guilt,  not  without  evidence, 
but  in  the  teeth  of  it,  and  had  condemned  him  before  he  was 
tried.  Some  of  the  magistrates  themselves  belonged  to  the  con- 
fraternity of  the  White  Penitents. 

One  of  them  only — M.  de  Lasalle — had  the  courage  to  object 
to  the  mockery  of  the  proceedings.  4 You  are  all  Calas,’  said  a 
brother  judge.  4 And  you,’  answered  Lasalle,  4 are  all  People.’ 

By  eight  votes  to  five,  then,  4 a weak  old  man  was  to  be  con- 
demned to  the  most  awful  of  all  deaths  ’ (first  the  torture,  and 
then  to  be  broken  on  the  wheel)  4 for  having  strangled  and  hanged 
with  his  feeble  hands,  in  hatred  of  the  Catholic  religion,  his 
robust  and  vigorous  son  who  had  no  more  inclination  towards 
that  religion  than  the  father  himself.’  The  words  are  the  words 
of  him  who,  said  Madame  du  Deffand,  became  all  men’s  avocat , 
Voltaire. 

Out  of  those  thirteen  judges  three  voted  for  torture  only,  and 
two  suggested  that  it  might  be  better  to  examine  the  shop  at  the 
Rue  des  Fila tiers  and  see  if  a suicide  ivere  impossible.  One  hero 
alone  voted  for  complete  acquittal. 

The  terms  of  the  sentence  display  a savage  ferocity,  of  which 
only  a religious  hatred  is  capable.  To  the  exquisite  tortures  to 


392 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1762 


which  Calas  was  condemned,  even  the  brutes  who,  drunk  with 
blood  and  believing  in  neither  God  nor  devil  committed  the  worst 
excesses  of  the  French  Revolution,  never  fell. 

This  mock  trial  had  taken  place  on  March  9.  On  March  10 
that  sentence  of  ghoulish  and  delighted  cruelty  was  read  to  the 
victim.  He  was  taken  straight  to  the  torture-room,  the  oath  was 
administered,  and  with  the  rack  in  front  to  remind  him  of  the 
fate  awaiting  him,  he  was  cross-examined.  He  answered  as  he 
had  always  answered — He  was  innocent.  When  asked  who  were 
his  accomplices,  he  replied  that  as  there  had  been  no  crime  there 
could  be  no  accomplices.  One  witness  speaks  of  his  4 calmness 
and  serenity.’  Yet  he  was  a feeble  man,  not  young,  who  for  five 
months  had  been  chained  in  a dark  dungeon,  accused  of  the  most 
awful  of  crimes,  and  knowing  that  in  his  downfall  he  had  dragged 
down  with  him  everything  he  loved  best  in  the  world. 

He  was  then  put  to  the  first  torture — the  Question  Ordinaire . 
The  very  record  of  such  horrors  still  makes  the  blood  run  cold. 
But  what  man  could  bear,  man  can  bear  to  hear.  First  bound 
by  the  wrists  to  an  iron  ring  in  the  wall,  four  feet  above  the 
ground,  4 and  his  feet  to  another  ring  in  the  floor  of  the  room,’ 
with  an  ample  length  of  rope  between,  4 the  body  was  stretched 
till  every  limb  was  drawn  from  its  socket.’  The  agony  was  then 
'increased  tenfold  by  sliding  a wooden  horse  under  the  lower 
rope.’  Thus,  in  mortal  torment,  Calas  was  questioned  again. 
He  maintained  his  innocence,  and  4 neither  wavered  nor  cried 
out.’ 

After  a rest — a rest ! — of  half  an  hour,  during  which  the 
magistrates  and  a priest  questioned  him  again,  he  was  put  to  the 
Question  Extraordinaire . Water  was  poured  into  his  mouth  by 
force  until  4 he  suffered  the  anguish  of  a hundred  drownings.’ 

He  was  then  questioned  again ; and  again  maintained  his 
innocence.  Then  more  water  was  poured  into  him,  until  his  body 
was  swollen  to  twice  its  natural  size.  He  was  again  questioned  ; 
with  the  same  results. 

Then  the  devils  called  Christians,  who  persecuted  him  in  the 
name  of  Christ,  saw  that  their  aim  would  be  defeated.  Calas 
would  not  confess.  But  he  could  die. 

He  was  taken  on  a tumbril  in  his  shirt  only — how  many  were 
to  go  thus  to  doom  after  him  ! — to  the  place  of  execution.  From 


^Et.  68] 


THE  AFFAIE  OF  CALAS 


393 


time  to  time  he  said  1 1 am  innocent.’  The  crowd — in  temper  and 
intent  the  crowd  who  eighteen  hundred  years  before  had  cried 
‘ Crucify  Him  ! * — reviled  him  as  he  went,  as  they  had  reviled  his 
Master.  At  the  scaffold  a priest,  whom  he  knew  personally,  once 
more  exhorted  him  to  confess.  ‘ What,  Father  ! ’ he  said.  ‘ Do 
you  too  believe  that  a man  could  kill  his  own  son  ? ’ Then,  again 
like  the  Truth  for  Whom  he  suffered,  he  was  bound  on  a cross. 
The  executioner  broke  each  of  his  limbs  in  two  places  with  an 
iron  bar.  He  lived  thus  for  two  hours,  praying  for  his  judges. 

A few  moments  before  his  death  a priest  again  exhorted  him 
to  confess.  ‘ I have  said  it,’  he  answered.  ‘ I die  innocent.’  At 
that  supreme  moment  he  mentioned  Lavaysse — the  boy  upon 
whom  he  had  brought  so  unwittingly  ruin  and  disgrace.  Then 
David  de  Beaudrigue,  who  felt  that  he  was  in  some  sort  cheated 
of  his  prey  without  a confession,  bade  him  turn  and  look  at  the 
fire  which  was  to  burn  him,  and  confess  all.  He  turned  and 
looked.  The  executioner  strangled  him  ; and  he  died  without  a 
word. 

His  noble  courage  at  least  saved  the  lives  of  his  family. 
Peter  was  condemned  to  perpetual  banishment,  ‘ which  if  he  was 
guilty  was  too  little ; and  if  he  was  innocent  was  too  much.’  He 
was  forced  into  a monastery ; and,  being  a weak  character  and 
told  that  if  he  did  not  abjure  his  religion  he  should  die  as  his 
father  had  died,  he  recanted  in  a terror  not  unnatural. 

His  mother  was  liberated.  She  crept  away  with  Jeannette 
into  the  country  near  Toulouse,  to  hide  her  broken  heart.  Her 
two  daughters  were  flung  each  into  a separate  convent.  Young 
Lavaysse  was  sent  back  to  his  family,  ruined  alike  in  health  and 
in  prospects. 

Donat  Calas,  the  youngest  of  the  family,  the  apprentice  at 
Nimes,  had  had  to  leave  France  when  the  trial  came  on,  for  fear 
of  being  indicted  as  an  accomplice.  He  went  to  Geneva. 

On  March  22,  1762,  only  twelve  days  after  the  death  of  Jean 
Calas,  Voltaire  mentioned  the  case  in  writing  to  Le  Bault.  He 
was  not  at  once  moved  to  take  any  side.  The  affair  was  not  his. 
But  if  he  did  take  any,  it  was  the  side  of  Catholicism.  ‘ We  are 
not  worth  much,’  he  said  airily,  ‘ but  the  Huguenots  are  worse 
than  we  are.  They  declaim  against  comedy.* 

But  the  affair  made  him  think.  Two  days  later  he  wrote  that 


394 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1762 


it  ‘ took  him  by  the  heart.’  Then  he  learnt  that  Donat  was  near 
him — at  Geneva  ; that  the  boy  had  fled  there  on  hearing  of  the 
trial.  That  seemed  like  guilt.  ‘ I am  interested  as  a man,  and 
a little  as  a philosopher.  I want  to  know  on  which  side  is  this 
horror  of  fanaticism.’  At  the  end  of  March,  Audibert,  a merchant 
of  Marseilles,  who  had  happened  to  be  in  Toulouse  when  the 
Calas  tragedy  was  enacted,  called  on  Voltaire  and  told  him  the 
facts  of  the  case  as  they  had  appeared  to  him.  Foul  play  some- 
where, thinks  Alain’s  pupil  and  Arouet’s  son,  putting  those  facts 
together.  But  where  ? ‘ I told  him  (Audibert)  that  the  crime  of 

Calas  was  not  probable  ; but  it  was  still  more  improbable  that 
disinterested  judges  should  condemn  an  innocent  man  to  be 
broken  on  the  wheel.’ 

Disinterested  ? There  lay  the  crux.  Voltaire’s  feelings  were 
roused  ; but  they  had  not  run  away  with  him.  On  March  27  he 
wrote  to  d’Argental : ‘ You  will  ask  me,  perhaps,  why  I interest 
myself  so  strongly  in  this  Calas  who  was  broken  on  the  wheel  ? 
It  is  because  I am  a man.  . . . Could  you  not  induce  M.  de 
Choiseul  to  have  this  fearful  case  investigated  ? ’ 

Every  day,  nay  every  hour,  a mind  far  keener  and  shrewder 
than  any  Choiseul’s  was  investigating  it  then : collecting  evidence ; 
writing  innumerable  letters  ; working,  working ; tempering  with 
cool  discretion  a zeal  that  burnt  hotter  every  moment  as  the 
innocence  of  Calas  forced  itself  upon  his  soul ; labouring  with 
that  4 fiery  patience,’  that  critical  judiciousness,  which  in  such  a 
case  alone  could  win. 

At  the  end  of  April  he  went  from  Ferney  to  Delices,  that  he 
might  be  nearer  Donat  Calas  ; study  him ; hear  an  account  of 
his  family  from  his  own  lips.  The  boy  was  only  fifteen ; cried 
when  he  told  that  piteous  story  ; and  spoke  of  both  his  father 
and  mother  as  infinitely  kind  and  indulgent  to  all  their  children. 

Lest  he  should  be  moved  by  those  emotions  which  grew 
stronger  every  day,  or  by  a moral  conviction  in  the  innocence 
of  Calas  not  fully  borne  out  by  physical  facts,  Voltaire  sought 
the  opinion  of  wise  and  capable  friends.  He  employed  Vegobre, 
an  able  (and  notably  unimaginative)  lawyer  of  Geneva,  to  in- 
vestigate legal  points ; and  for  hours  and  hours  would  remain 
closeted  with  him.  Ribotte-Charon,  a merchant  of  Toulouse, 
himself  warmly  interested  in  the  case,  Voltaire  induced  to  ex- 


HCt.  68] 


THE  AFFAIR  OF  CALAS 


395 


amine  the  site  of  the  supposed  murder  and  to  study  local  details. 
Chazel,  a solicitor  of  Montpellier,  he  engaged  to  interview  the 
leading  magistrates  of  the  Languedoc  district  and  to  procure 
documents. 

But  to  obtain  a formal  investigation  of  the  affair  it  was 
necessary  to  get  the  ear  of  the  Chancellor  of  France,  the  Count 
of  Saint-Florentin.  Voltaire  incited  every  powerful  friend  he 
had  in  the  world  to  assail  this  person.  Villars  and  Richelieu 
were  made  to  bombard  him.  What  was  the  use  of  Dr.  Tronchin’s 
famous  and  influential  patients  if  they  could  not  be  induced  to 
attack  M.  Florentin  too  ? Tronchin  roused  them,  and  they  did 
as  they  were  told.  At  Geneva  was  the  Duchesse  d’Enville,  also 
a Tronchin  patient,  clever,  powerful,  and  enlightened.  Voltaire 
fired  her  with  his  own  enthusiasm,  and  she  wrote  direct  to  Saint- 
Florentin.  As  for  Madame  de  Pompadour  and  Choiseul,  Vol- 
taire undertook  them  himself.  The  Pompadour  was  always  ‘ one 
of  us  ’ in  her  heart;  and  while  she  hated  the  Jesuits,  Choiseul 
did  not  love  them. 

By  the  end  of  June,  Voltaire  had  brought  Madame  Calas  up 
to  Paris  and  begged  his  Angels,  ‘ in  the  name  of  humankind/ 
to  take  her  broken  life  under  their  wings.  She  had  not  been 
easy  to  persuade  to  come.  She  was  crushed  to  the  earth,  as 
she  might  well  be.  Hope  for  the  future,  or  hope  for  vengeance 
for  the  past,  she  had  none.  Only  one  passionate  desire  seems 
to  have  been  left  her — to  get  back  her  daughters  from  the  con- 
vents into  which  they  had  been  forced.  The  property  of  criminals 
was  then  confiscated  to  the  King,  and  she  had  not  a farthing  in 
the  world.  But  Voltaire  paid  all  her  expenses — content  to  wait 
until  the  generosity  of  Europe  should  refund  him.  For  counsel 
he  gave  her  d’Alembert  and  the  famous  avocat , Mariette.  On 
June  11  he  appointed  Elie  de  Beaumont  as  Mariette’s  colleague. 
It  is  always  a part  of  cleverness  to  discover  the  cleverness  of 
others.  Beaumont  was  young  and  unknown  ; but  he  was  a most 
able  choice. 

On  July  4 Peter  Calas  escaped  from  his  monastery,  and  joined 
Donat  at  Geneva.  Voltaire  had  thus  the  two  brothers  under 
observation.  He  put  them  through  searching  inquiries.  Peter 
was  naturally  a most  important  witness. 

On  July  5 Voltaire  first  spoke  to  d’Argental  of  the  ‘ Original 


396 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1762 


Documents  concerning  the  Galas  ’ which  in  this  month  he  gave 
to  the  world.  They  are  for  all  time  a model  of  editorial  genius. 
They  consist  only  of  an  extract  from  a letter  from  Madame  Calas, 
and  of  a letter  from  Donat  Calas  to  his  mother.  Voltaire's 
name  did  not  appear  at  all.  They  contain  that  most  damning 
of  all  evidence — a perfectly  clear  and  simple  statement  of  plain 
facts.  If  the  editor  contributed  order  and  brevity,  he  left  the 
quiet  pathos  of  the  woman  and  the  passionate  eagerness  of  the 
boy  to  speak  for  themselves. 

The  ‘ Original  Documents  * he  quickly  followed  up  by  a 
4 Memoir  and  Declaration ’ : the  ‘ Memoir  ’ purporting  to  be  by 
Donat  Calas,  the  ‘ Declaration  ’ by  Peter. 

Once  again  he  wholly  obliterated  himself.  Only  a Voltaire’s 
genius  could  have  curbed  a Voltaire’s  passion  and  made  him 
rein  in,  even  for  a while,  his  own  fiery  eloquence,  speak  as  those 
poor  Calas  would  have  spoken,  and  wait. 

He  knew  now,  by  every  proof  which  can  carry  conviction  to 
the  mind,  that  they  were  innocent ; and  he  had  given  those 
proofs  to  the  world. 

But  that  was  not  enough.  In  August  he  published  ‘The 
History  of  Elizabeth  Canning  and  of  the  Calas.’  Nothing  he 
ever  wrote  shows  more  clearly  how  perfectly  he  understood  that 
April  nation,  his  countrymen.  ‘ Documents  ’ and  ‘ Declara- 
tions ’ ! Why,  they  at  least  sounded  dull ; and  eighteenth- 
century  Paris  was  not  even  going  to  run  the  risk  of  a yawn. 

‘ One  might  break  half  a dozen  innocent  people  on  the  wheel, 
and  in  Paris  people  would  only  talk  of  the  new  comedy  and 
think  of  a good  supper.’  But  Paris  loved  to  be  made  to  laugh 
one  moment  and  to  weep  the  next ; to  have  its  quick  pity 
touched  and  its  quick  humour  tickled — in  a breath. 

‘ The  History  of  Elizabeth  Canning  ’ is  sarcastically  amusing 
— an  account  of  that  enterprising  young  Englishwoman  who 
nearly  had  another  woman  hanged  on  the  strength  of  a story 
invented  by  herself  and  her  relatives. 

‘ It  is  in  vain  that  the  law  wishes  that  two  witnesses  should 
be  able  to  hang  an  accused.  If  the  Lord  Chancellor  and  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  depose  that  they  have  seen  me  assas- 
sinate my  father  and  my  mother,  and  eat  them  whole  for  break- 
fast in  a quarter  of  an  hour,  the  Chancellor  and  the  Archbishop 


Mt.  68] 


THE  AFFAIR  OF  CALAS 


397 


must  be  sent  to  Bedlam,  instead  of  burning  me  on  their  fine 
testimony.  Put  on  one  hand  a thing  absurd  and  impossible, 
and  on  the  other  a thousand  witnesses  and  reasoners,  and  the 
impossibility  ought  to  give  the  lie  to  all  testimonies  and 
reasonings.* 

‘The  History  of  the  Calas*  was  that  sombre  and  terrible 
story  told  by  a master  mind : passionate,  and  yet  cool ; moving, 
and  yet  cautious  in  argument ; the  work  at  once  of  the  ablest, 
keenest,  shrewdest  lawyer  in  the  case,  and  of  the  man  who  said 
of  himself,  almost  without  exaggeration,  that  for  three  years, 
until  Calas  was  vindicated,  a smile  never  escaped  him  for  which 
he  did  not  reproach  himself  as  for  a crime. 

He  did  not  appeal  to  ‘ that  great  and  supreme  judge  of  all 
suits  and  causes,  public  opinion,*  in  vain.  The  Calas  case 
became  the  talk  of  Europe.  Men  felt,  as  Donat  had  been  made 
to  say  in  his  Memoir,  that  ‘the  cause  was  the  cause  of  all 
families  ; of  Nature ; of  religion ; of  the  State ; and  of  foreign 
countries.* 

Voltaire  had  his  Calas  pamphlets  translated  and  published 
in  Germany  and  England.  Generous  England  came  forward 
with  a subscription  list  for  the  unhappy  family,  headed  by  the 
young  Queen  of  George  III.,  and  to  which  the  Empress  of  Russia 
and  the  King  of  Poland  became  contributors. 

But  still,  to  rouse  men’s  interest  was  but  a means  to  an  end. 
The  end  was  to  obtain  first  from  the  Council  of  Paris  a decree 
ordering  that  the  case  should  be  re-tried,  and  then  that  fresh  trial 
itself.  The  obstacles  were  not  few  or  trifling.  Louis  XV.  and 
Saint-Florentin,  in  spite  of  the  influence  brought  to  bear  upon 
them,  were  both  opposed  to  such  a course.  A too  strict  and 
searching  justice  did  not  suit  the  monarchy  of  France.  Louis  XV. 
was  always  wise  enough  to  let  sleeping  dogs  lie  if  he  could, 
instead  of  convening  States-General  and  dismissing  and  recalling 
ministers  to  please  the  people  they  governed,  like  that  weak  fool, 
his  successor.  ‘ Why  can’t  you  leave  it  alone  ? * was  the  motto  of 
both  King  and  Chancellor  over  the  Calas  case.  And  they  would 
have  lived  up  to  it,  but  that  the  public  opinion  which  had  a 
Voltaire  as  its  mouthpiece  was  too  strong  for  them. 

Another  difficulty  lay  in  the  fact  that  Lavaysse  pdre  was 
so  terrified  by  the  Parliament  of  Toulouse  that  he  took  much 


398 


THE  LIFE  OF  YOLTAIEE 


[1762 


persuading  before  he  would  appear  openly  on  the  side  of  Voltaire 
and  as  a witness  for  his  own  son.  Then,  too,  the  natural  passionate 
eagerness  of  Madame  Calas  to  get  back  her  daughters,  immediately 
and  before  the  time  was  ripe,  had  to  be  curbed  ; and,  far  worse 
than  all,  that  miserable  Toulouse  Parliament  had  so  far  entirely 
declined  to  furnish  any  of  the  papers  concerning  the  trial,  or  even 
the  decree  of  arrest. 

In  September  Elie  de  Beaumont  was  ready  with  an  able 
‘ Memoir  ’ on  the  case,  signed  by  fifteen  of  his  brother  barristers. 
He  showed  that  there  were  ‘ three  impossibilities  1 in  the  way  of 
Calas  having  murdered  his  son.  ‘ The  fourth,'  said  Voltaire,  ‘ is 
that  of  resisting  your  arguments.'  The  ‘ Memoir  ’ was  naturally 
more  technical  than  Voltaire's,  but  it  was  not  more  clever,  nor 
half  so  moving. 

Another  friend  of  the  case,  the  brave  Lasalle,  who  had  become 
‘ the  public  avocat  for  Calas  in  all  the  houses  of  Toulouse,'  and 
had  been  challenged  to  a duel  on  the  subject  by  a brother  magis- 
trate, was  also  in  Paris  in  November.  In  December,  through 
the  untiring  exertions  of  the  Duchesse  d’Enville,  herself  a 
mother,  Nanette  and  Eose,  the  daughters,  were  restored  to  Madame 
Calas. 

On  December  29  Voltaire  wrote  that  this  restoration  was  an 
infallible  test  of  the  progress  of  the  case.  But,  he  added,  ‘ it  is 
shameful  that  the  affair  drags  so  long.' 

Drags  so  long ! Through  the  kindly  veil  that  hides  the 
future,  even  a Voltaire’s  keen  eyes  could  not  penetrate.  For  nine 
months  he  had  now  dreamt  Calas,  worked  Calas,  lived  Calas. 
Every  letter  he  wrote  is  full  of  him.  For  that  one  man  whom  he 
had  never  seen,  and  who  died  as,  after  all,  thousands  of  others 
had  died,  the  victim  of  religious  hatred,  Voltaire  forgot  the  drama 
which  his  soul  loved,  and  that  aggravating  Jean  Jacques’  latest 
novel,  4 Emile,’  which  his  soul  scorned.  Calas ! Calas  ! For 
those  nine  months  the  thing  beat  upon  his  brain  as  regularly  and 
unremittingly  as  the  sea  breaks  on  the  shore.  For  Calas  was 
more  than  a case  : he  was  a type. 

Voltaire  had  first  thought  that  he  saw  in  that  dreadful  story 
Vinfdme  in  the  garb  of  a cold  and  cruel  Calvinism,  changing  the 
tenderest  instincts  of  the  human  heart  into  a ferocity  which  made 
a father  the  murderer  of  his  own  son.  And  then  he  had  dis- 


JEt.  68] 


THE  AFFAIR  OF  CALAS 


399 


covered  that  it  was  that  old  V inf  time  he  knew  better — V inf  time 
who  in  the  person  of  priest  and  magistrate  kept  the  people 
ignorant,  and  then  inflamed  that  ignorance  for  their  own  shame- 
ful ends. 

What  Calas  had  suffered,  others  might  suffer.  While  he  was 
unavenged,  while  that  criminal  law  and  procedure  which  con- 
demned him  went  unreformed,  while  his  judges  were  not  rendered 
execrable  to  other  men  and  hateful  to  themselves,  who  was  safe  ? 

To  Voltaire  the  cause  of  Calas  was  the  cause  of  Tolerance ; 
that  Tolerance  which  was  the  principle  and  the  passion  of  his 
life. 


400 


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[1762 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

THE  4 TREATISE  ON  TOLERANCE  ’ 

One  of  the  disadvantages  of  biography  as  compared  with  fiction 
is,  that  in  real  life  many  events  occur  simultaneously,  and  the 
dramatic  effect  of  a crisis  is  often  spoilt  by  that  crisis  being 
extended  over  a long  period  of  time  and  being  interrupted  by 
trivialities. 

The  Calas  case,  at  whose  4 dragging  ’ Voltaire  had  cried  out  at 
the  end  of  nine  months,  lasted  for  three  years — a period  which  is 
certainly  a severe  test  of  enthusiasm.  Voltaire’s  triumphantly 
survived  that  test.  At  the  end  of  those  three  years  he  was  only 
more  eager,  passionate,  and  laborious  than  he  had  been  at  the 
beginning. 

But  in  the  meantime  there  were  Ferney,  Tourney,  and  Delices 
to  manage ; Madame  Denis  always  needing  amusement,  and 
Marie  Corneille  always  needing  instruction ; that  busy,  hot- 
headed rival,  Rousseau,  to  be  taken  into  account,  to  say  nothing 
of  friends  and  enemies,  visitors  and  plays. 

On  March  25,  1762 — just  about  the  time  when  the  first 
rumours  of  the  Calas  story  reached  Voltaire — 4 Olympie  ’ took 
what  may  be  called  its  trial  trip  at  Ferney.  Two  or  three 
hundred  people  sobbed  all  through  it  in  the  most  satisfactory 
manner,  and  all  felt  cheerful  enough  to  enjoy  a ball  and  a supper 
afterwards. 

In  April,  these  enthusiastic  amateurs  were  once  more  delighted 
by  a visit  from  the  great  actor  Lekain.  He  had  been  at  Delices 
in  1755  ; but  there  was  a beautiful  new  little  theatre  at  Ferney 
now,  where  4 Olympie  ’ was  played  again.  Lekain  looked  on  as 
a critic  ; and  Voltaire  did  the  same,  being  debarred  from  his  dear 
acting  by  a cold  in  the  head.  4 Tancred  ’ was  played  too,  and 
when  there  came  that  line  : 

Oh  cursed  judges  1 in  whose  feeble  hands — 


JEt.  68]  THE  ‘ TREATISE  ON  TOLERANCE  ’ 


401 


the  whole  house  got  upon  its  feet  and  howled  itself  hoarse.  It 
would  not  have  been  like  Voltaire  to  hide  from  his  friends,  even 
if  he  could  have  done  so,  a subject  that  so  possessed  him  as  the 
subject  of  Calas.  ‘It  is  the  only  reparation/  he  said,  writing  of 
the  scene,  ‘ that  has  yet  been  made  to  the  memory  of  the  most 
unhappy  of  fathers/ 

Charming  the  audience  with  her  soft  voice  and  round  girlish 
freshness,  Marie  Corneille  was  now  always  one  of  the  actresses. 
She  had  by  this  time  a pretty  dot  as  well  as  a pretty  face ; and 
Papa  Voltaire,  in  addition  to  the  proceeds  of  the  Corneille  Com- 
mentary, had  settled  a little  estate  upon  her.  A suitor  naturally 
appeared  soon  upon  the  tapis . But  though  he  was  warmly 
recommended  by  the  d’Argentals,  M.  Vaugrenant  de  Cormont 
seems  to  have  been  chiefly  remarkable  for  large  debts,  a very 
mean  father,  and  the  delusion  that  he  was  conferring  a very  great 
honour  on  Mademoiselle  by  marrying  her.  He  had  taken  up  his 
abode  at  Ferney,  and  when  he  had  received  his  conge  was  not 
to  be  dislodged  without  difficulty.  Mademoiselle  was  serenely 
indifferent  to  him  ; so  no  harm  was  done. 

Marrying  and  giving  in  marriage  was  to  the  fore  in  the 
Voltaire  menage  just  then.  In  May  Madame  de  Fontaine  became 
the  wife  of  that  Marquis  de  Florian  who  had  stayed  with  her  at 
Ferney  and  long  been  her  lover.  Voltaire  was  delighted — not  in 
the  least  on  the  score  of  morality — but  because  he  thought  the 
pair  would  suit  each  other,  which  they  did. 

On  June  11,  1762,  ‘ Emile,  or  Education,’  Jean  Jacques’  new 
novel,  was  publicly  burnt  in  Paris.  Nine  days  after,  it  was  con- 
demned to  the  same  fate  in  Geneva.  ‘ Emile  ’ expresses  in 
nervous  and  inspired  language  some  of  those  theories  which 
Voltaire’s  friend,  Dr.  Tronchin,  had  worked  so  hard  to  bring  into 
practice.  It  was  not  so  much  the  education  of  children  that 
‘ Emile  ’ dealt  with  as  the  education  of  parents.  To  abolish  the 
fatal  system  of  foster-motherhood,  instituted  that  the  real  mothers 
might  have  more  time  for  their  lovers,  their  toilettes,  and  their 
pleasures,  to  portray  a child  brought  up  in  natural  and  virtuous 
surroundings— even  an  eighteenth-century  censor  could  not  have 
found  matter  meet  for  burning  in  this.  But  ‘ Emile  ’ was  only  a 
scapegoat.  ‘ The  Social  Contract,’  published  a little  earlier,  was 
what  the  authorities  really  attacked. 


D D 


402 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1762 


Neither  the  publication  of  ‘ Emile,’  nor  its  burning,  particu- 
larly attracted  Voltaire’s  notice  at  first.  Like  Lasalle,  he  was 
all  Calas.  On  July  21  he  wrote  indifferently  to  Cideville  that 
Rousseau  had  been  banished  from  Berne  and  is  now  at  Neuf- 
chatel,  ‘ thinking  he  is  always  right,  and  regarding  other  people 
with  pity.’  For  the  ‘ Profession  of  Faith  of  a Savoyard  Vicar  ’ 
which  was  ‘imbedded  in  “Emile,”’  Voltaire  indeed  not  only 
felt,  but  expressed,  a very  sincere  admiration.  But  your  ‘ Eloisa  ’ 
and  your  ‘ Emile,’  and  your  hysterics  generally,  why,  they  bore 
me,  my  dear  Jean  Jacques ! And  you  are  so  dreadfully  long- 
winded,  you  know  ! However,  the  ‘ Savoyard  Vicar  ’ had  shown 
that  Rousseau  had  the  courage  of  his  unbelief.  It  was  the  kind 
of  heroism  in  which  Voltaire  was  not  going  to  be  behindhand.  In 
July  1762  appeared  his  ‘ Sermon  of  Fifty,’  whose  excellent  brevity 
was  a reproach  and  a corrective  to  the  four  immense  volumes  of 
i Emile,’  and  whose  virulent  attack  upon  the  Jewish  faith  was  at 
least  as  outspoken  and  unmistakable  as  the  Vicar’s  ‘ Profession.’ 

This  fifty-paged  pamphlet  is  noticeable  as  the  first  of  Vol- 
taire’s works  which  is  openly  anti-Christian.  Goethe  declared 
that  for  it,  in  his  youthful  fanaticism,  he  would  have  strangled 
the  author  if  he  could  have  got  hold  of  him. 

Rousseau,  of  course,  took  ‘ The  Sermon  of  Fifty  ’ amiss,  as 
he  was  fast  coming  to  take  amiss  everything  Voltaire  did.  Jean 
Jacques  was  quite  persuaded,  for  instance,  that  it  was  Voltaire 
who  had  incited  the  Council  of  Geneva  to  burn  ‘ Emile  ’ ; and, 
presently,  that  it  was  Voltaire’s  hand  which  guided  the  pen  of 
Robert  Tronchin’s  ‘Letters  from  the  Country,’  which  favoured 
the  burning  of  ‘ Emile,’  and  to  which  Rousseau  was  to  make 
reply  in  the  brilliant  and  splendid  inspiration  of  his  famous 
‘ Letters  from  the  Mountain.’ 

The  truth  seems  to  have  been  that  Voltaire  laughed  at  Jean 
Jacques  instead  of  losing  his  temper  with  him ; or,  rather,  that 
he  lost  his  temper  with  him  for  an  occasional  five  minutes,  and 
then  laughed  and  forgave  him.  Vegobre,  the  lawyer,  who  is 
described  as  having  ‘ no  imagination  ’ to  invent  such  stories,  was 
once  breakfasting  at  Ferney  when  some  letters  came  detailing 
the  persecution  inflicted  on  Rousseau  for  his  ‘ Vicar.’  ‘ Let  him 
come  here  ! ’ cried  Voltaire.  ‘ Let  him  come  here ! I would 
receive  him  like  my  own  son.’ 


JEt.  68]  THE  ‘ TREATISE  ON  TOLERANCE  ’ 


403 


The  Prince  de  Ligne  also  records  how,  after  Voltaire  had 
vehemently  declared  that  Jean  Jacques  was  a monster  and  a 
scoundrel  for  whom  no  law  ever  invented  was  sufficiently  severe, 
he  added,  4 Where  is  he,  poor  wretch  ? Hunted  out  of  Neuf- 
chatel,  I dare  say.  Let  him  come  here  ! Bring  him  here  : he  is 
welcome  to  everything  I have/ 

All  the  sentiments  were  genuine,  no  doubt.  It  would  have 
been  perfectly  in  Voltaire’s  character  to  abuse  Rousseau  by  every 
epithet  in  a peculiarly  rich  vituperative  vocabulary,  and  to  have 
received  him  with  all  generous  hospitality  and  thoughtful  kind- 
ness as  a guest  in  his  house  for  months  ; to  have  quarrelled  with 
him  and  abused  him  again,  and  once  more  to  have  received  him 
as  a brother. 

After  all,  Voltaire  was  not  a perfect  hater. 

That  sodden,  worthless  Theriot  came  to  Delices  for  a three 
months’  visit  in  July,  with  all  his  treachery  and  ingratitude 
amply  forgotten  ; and  in  October  that  very  showy  hero,  Richelieu, 
who  was  always  in  money  debt  to  Voltaire,  descended  upon  his 
creditor  with  a suite  of  no  fewer  than  forty  persons.  They  had 
to  be  accommodated  at  Tourney,  and  fetes  and  theatricals  devised 
for  their  master’s  benefit.  The  Duchesse  d’Enville  and  the  Duke 
of  Villars  were  also  staying  with  Voltaire,  who  was  quite  delighted 
to  discover  that  a Richelieu  of  sixty-six  still  kept  up  his  character 
for  gallantry,  and  to  surprise  him  at  the  feet  of  a charming 
Madame  Menage,  a Tronchin  patient.  The  pretty  face  and  wit 
of  Madame  Cramer  also  quite  vanquished  the  susceptible  elderly 
heart  of  the  conqueror.  Voltaire  offered  to  get  rid — temporarily 
— of  her  husband.  But  Richelieu  had  reckoned,  not  without  his 
host  indeed,  but  without  his  hostess.  Sprightly  Madame  Cramer 
laughed  in  his  face. 

The  first  authorised  publication  of  a work  which  had  been 
suggested  at  Richelieu’s  supper- table  thirty- two  years  earlier 
belongs,  by  some  bizarrerie  of  destiny,  to  this  1762,  which  also 
saw  the  noblest  work  of  Voltaire’s  life — the  defence  of  Calas  and 
the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  of  Tolerance. 

Whoso  has  followed  its  author’s  history  has  also  followed  the 
4 Pucelle’s.’ 

Alternately  delight  and  torment,  danger  and  refuge ; now 
being  read  in  the  Cirey  bathroom  to  the  ecstatic  bliss  of  Madame 


404 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1762-63 


de  Graffigny,  now  passed  from  hand  to  hand  and  from  salon  to 
salon  in  Paris,  now  being  copied  in  Prussia,  and  then  burnt  in 
Geneva,  hidden  in  Collini’s  breeches  at  Frankfort,  and  stolen 
from  Emilie’s  effects  by  Mademoiselle  du  Thil — the  adventures 
of  the  ‘ Pucelle  ’ would  form  a volume. 

Considered  intrinsically,  it  is  at  once  Voltaire’s  shame  and 
fame.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  there  are  still  many  people  who  are 
only  interested  in  him  as  the  author  of  the  ‘ Pucelle  ’ ; while 
there  are  others  to  whom  the  fact  that  he  wrote  it  blots  out  his 
noble  work  for  humanity,  and  the  bold  part  he  played  in  the 
advancement  of  that  civilisation  which  they,  and  all  men,  enjoy 
to-day. 

That  Voltaire  took  in  vain  the  name  of  that  purest  of  heroines, 
Joan  of  Arc,  is  at  least  partially  forgivable.  He  did  not  know, 
and  could  not  have  known,  the  facts  of  her  life  as  everybody 
knows  them  to-day.  His  offences  against  decency  may  be  judged 
in  that  well-worn  couplet : 

Immodest  words  admit  of  no  defence, 

And  want  of  decency  is  want  of  sense. 

Only  one  excuse  need  even  be  offered.  Voltaire  wrote  to  the  taste 
of  his  age.  As  the  coarse  horseplay  and  boisterous  mirth  of 
the  novels  of  Fielding  perfectly  portrayed  humour  as  understood 
by  eighteenth- century  England,  so  the  gay  indelicacies  of  the 
‘ Pucelle  ’ represent  humour  as  understood  by  eighteenth-century 
France. 

The  fact  that  women,  and  even  women  who  were  at  least 
nominally  respectable,  were  not  ashamed  to  listen  and  laugh  at 
those  airy,  shameful  doubles  ententes , proves  that  the  thing  was 
to  the  taste  of  the  time;  as  the  fact  that  4 Tom  Jones  ’ and 
‘ Joseph  Andrews  * were  read  aloud  to  select  circles  of  admiring 
English  ladies  proves  that  Fielding  likewise  had  not  mistaken  the 
taste  of  his  public. 

The  ‘ Pucelle  ’ is  infinitely  bright,  rollicking,  and  amusing. 
Voltaire’s  indecency  was  never  that  of  a diseased  mind  like 
Swift.  He  flung  not  a little  philosophy  into  his  licence,  and 
through  sparkling  banter  whispered  his  message  to  his  age. 
Those  ten  thousand  lines  of  burlesque  terminated,  it  has  been 
said,  the  domination  of  legends  over  the  human  mind.  Condorcet 


,Et.  68-69]  THE  ‘ TREATISE  ON  TOLERANCE  ’ 


405 


goes  so  far  as  to  declare  that  readers  need  only  see  in  the  author 
of  the  4 Pucelle  ’ the  enemy  of  hypocrisy  and  superstition. 

But  the  fact  seems  to  be  that  though  Voltaire  was  constantly 
hitting  out,  as  he  always  was  hitting,  at  hypocrisy  and  super- 
stition, the  blows  this  time  were  only  incidental ; and  that  he 
wrote  first  to  amuse  himself,  and  then  to  amuse  his  world. 

That  he  succeeded  in  both  cases,  condemns  both  it  and  him. 

If  Voltaire’s  connection  with  Madame  du  Chatelet  was  a blot 
on  his  moral  character,  the  4 Pucelle  * was  a darker  blot.  It 
spread  wider  to  do  harm.  His  passionate  and  tireless  work  for 
the  liberation  of  men’s  souls  and  bodies,  for  light  and  for  right, 
make  such  blots  infinitely  to  be  regretted.  That  the  best  work 
in  the  world  is  not  done  by  morally  the  best  men  is  a hard  truth, 
but  it  is  a truth. 

Of  the  ‘ Pucelle  ’ it  can  only  be  said, 

But  yet  the  pity  of  it,  Iago  !— O Iago,  the  pity  of  it ! 

On  February  12  of  1768  the  man  who  had  not  only  written 
the  most  scandalous  of  epics,  but  had  tended  Marie  Corneille  with 
as  honest  a respect  and  affection  as  if  she  had  been  his  own 
innocent  daughter,  married  her  to  M.  Dupuits,  cornet  of  dragoons, 
handsome,  delightful,  three-and-twenty,  and  head  over  ears  in 
love  with  Mademoiselle.  M.  Dupuits  united  to  his  other  charms 
the  fact  that  his  estates  joined  Ferney,  and  that  he  was  quite 
sufficiently  well  off.  One  little  trouble  there  had  been.  Pere 
Corneille  disapproved  not  only  of  this  marriage,  but  of  any 
marriage,  for  his  daughter.  Voltaire  sent  him  a handsome  pre- 
sent of  money  to  assuage  his  wounded  feelings,  but  did  not  invite 
him  to  the  ceremony  lest  young  Dupuits  should  have  cause  to  be 
ashamed  of  his  father-in-law,  and  that  graceless  Duke  of  Villars, 
who  was  also  at  Ferney,  should  laugh  at  him.  The  ceremony 
took  place  at  midnight  on  February  12,  and  the  wedding  dinner 
was  at  least  magnificent  enough  to  give  Mama  Denis  as  Marie 
called  her,  an  indigestion.  There  were  no  partings.  The  young 
couple  took  up  their  abode  at  Ferney,  where  their  love-making 
gave  the  keenest  delight  to  a large  element  of  romance  still  left  in 
Voltaire’s  old  heart,  and  where  presently  their  children  were  born. 

It  was  not  wonderful  that  the  good  fortunes  of  Marie  Corneille 
should  have  incited  many  other  offshoots  of  that  family  to  ‘ come 


406 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1763 


pecking  about/  as  Voltaire  said,  to  see  if  there  was  anything  for 
them.  Only  a month  after  she  was  married,  Claude  Etienne 
Corneille,  who  was  in  the  direct  line  of  descent  from  the  great 
Corneille,  and  not  in  the  indirect,  like  lucky  Marie,  appeared  at 
Ferney.  But  Voltaire,  though  he  thought  Claude  an  honest  man 
and  was  sorry  for  him,  could  not  adopt  the  whole  clan.  His 
mood  was  still  adoptive,  however. 

In  this  very  year  he  took  to  live  with  him  Mademoiselle  Dupuits, 
Marie’s  sister-in-law  ; and  a certain  Father  Adam.  Mademoiselle 
Dupuits  was  not  less  pretty  than  Marie,  and  very  much  more 
intelligent.  Several  of  the  noble  Ferney  visitors  amused  them- 
selves by  falling  in  love  with  her. 

On  March  2 Voltaire  had  written,  4 We  are  free  of  the  Jesuits, 
but  I do  not  know  that  it  is  such  a great  good.’ 

The  suppression  of  the  Order  of  Ignatius  (it  was  not  confirmed 
by  royal  edict  until  1764)  first  occurred  to  him  as  a splendid  tilt 
at  Vinfdme — as  the  happiest  omen  for  the  future  that  those  who 
had  been  so  intolerant  should  themselves  be  tolerated  no  more. 
But  reflection  cooled  him.  What  is  the  good  of  being  rid  of 
Jesuit  foxes  if  one  falls  to  Jansenist  wolves?  ‘ We  expel  the 
Jesuits/  he  wrote  to  that  good  old  friend  of  his,  the  Duchess  of 
Saxe- Gotha,  in  July,  ‘ and  remain  the  prey  of  the  convulsionists. 
It  is  only  Protestant  princes  who  behave  sensibly.  They  keep 
priests  in  their  right  place.’ 

None  of  these  reflections  taken  singly,  nor  all  of  them  taken 
together,  prevented  Voltaire  from  receiving  into  his  house — ‘ as 
chaplain/  he  said  sardonically — the  Jesuit  priest  called  Father 
Adam,  whom  he  had  known  at  Colmar  in  1754,  and  whose 
acquaintance  he  had  since  renewed  at  neighbouring  Ornex.  To 
be  sure,  Voltaire  had  no  need  to  be  afraid  of  any  priestly  influence, 
especially  from  one  of  whom  he  was  fond  of  saying,  that  though 
Father  Adam,  he  was  not  the  first  of  men. 

Like  the  Protestant  princes,  Voltaire  knew  very  well  how  to 
keep  his  priest  in  his  proper  place.  The  Father  was  an  indolent 
man,  with  a little  fortune  of  his  own  and  a rather  quarrelsome 
disposition.  But  he  made  himself  useful  at  Ferney  for  thirteen 
years  by  entertaining  the  visitors  and  playing  chess  with  his  lord 
and  master.  One  of  the  visitors  declared  that  Adam  was  Jesuit 
enough  to  let  himself  be  beaten  at  the  game — his  opponent  so 


Mt.  69]  THE  ‘ TREATISE  ON  TOLERANCE  ’ 


407 


dearly  loved  to  win  ! But  another,  La  Harpe,  who  was  at  Ferney 
a whole  year,  denies  this,  and  declares  that  Voltaire  frequently 
lost  the  game,  and  his  temper,  and  when  he  saw  things  were 
going  badly  with  him  told  anecdotes  to  distract  his  adversary’s 
attention.  A third  authority  states  that  when  the  game  was 
practically  lost  to  him,  M.  de  Voltaire  would  begin  gently  hum- 
ming a tune.  If  Adam  did  not  take  the  hint  and  retire  at  once, 
Voltaire  flung  the  chessmen  one  after  another  at  the  Father’s 
head.  Prudent  Adam,  however,  usually  left  at  once.  When 
Voltaire  had  become  calmer,  he  would  call  out  profanely,  ‘ Adam, 
where  art  thou  ? ’ The  Father  came  back  ; and  the  game  was 
resumed  as  if  nothing  had  happened. 

Another  member  of  a colony,  which,  as  Voltaire  said,  was 
enough  to  make  one  die  of  laughter,  was  the  fat  Swiss  servant, 
Barbara  or  Bonne-Baba,  who  showed  her  contempt  for  her  illus- 
trious master  quite  plainly  and  to  his  great  enjoyment,  and 
assured  him  she  could  not  understand  how  anybody  could  be 
silly  enough  to  think  he  had  an  ounce  of  common-sense. 

If  it  was  a laughable  household,  it  was,  as  its  master  also 
said,  a household  that  laughed  from  morning  till  night,  and 
could  be,  that  lively  cripple  d’Aumard  included,  as  lighthearted 
as  childhood. 

But  through  all,  never  forgotten  for  a moment  or  put  aside 
for  a day,  was  the  affair  of  Calas. 

On  March  7,  1763,  that  affair  had  its  first  triumph.  On  that 
day  the  Council  of  Paris  met  at  Versailles,  the  Chancellor  pre- 
siding, and  all  the  councillors  and  ministers,  religious  and  civil, 
attending,  and  decreed  that  there  should  be  a new  trial  and  that 
the  Toulouse  Parliament  should  produce  the  records  of  the  old. 
Madame  Calas  and  her  two  girls  were  present.  All  through  the 
winter  it  had  been  considered  an  honour  to  call  upon  them,  or  to 
meet  them  at  the  d’Argentals’  house.  Councillors  and  officials 
vied  with  each  other  in  thoughtful  attentions  to  them  all.  During 
the  sitting  of  the  court  one  of  the  girls  fainted,  and  was  nearly 
killed  with  kindness.  Some  person,  thought  to  be  young 
Lavaysse,  with  a style  charmingly  candid  and  simple,  has  written 
an  account  of  the  day.  Not  only  was  the  court  ‘ all  Calas  ’ — its 
eighty-four  members  unanimously  voted  for  the  case  to  be 
retried — but  her  Catholic  Majesty,  Marie  Leczinska  herself,  who 


408 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1763 


had  by  no  means  forgotten  to  hate  their  great  avocat , Voltaire, 
received  Madame  Calas  and  her  daughters  with  kindness.  The 
King  himself  had  ‘ formally  approved  ’ that  the  papers  of  the 
procedure  at  Toulouse  should  be  sent  to  the  Council  of  Paris. 
The  hostile  influence  of  Saint-Florentin  had  been  more  than 
counteracted  by  the  favourable,  though  secret,  influence  of  Choiseul. 

When  Voltaire,  waiting  feverishly  at  Ferney,  heard  the  long 
hoped-for  decree,  his  heart  gave  one  great  leap  of  joy.  ‘ Then 
there  is  justice  on  the  earth ; there  is  humanity/  he  wrote, 

4 Men  are  not  all  rogues,  as  people  say  ; ...  it  seems  to  me  that 
the  day  of  the  Council  of  State  is  a great  day  for  philosophy.’ 

He  eagerly  concluded  that  this  at  last  was  the  beginning  of 
the  end.  But  there  was  still  infinite  room  for  that  slow  courage 
called  patience. 

Now  being  passed  from  hand  to  hand  in  Paris,  and  having 
been  so  passed  since  the  beginning  of  the  year  1768,  was  what 
may  be  called  the  fruit  of  the  Calas  case  : fruit  of  which  men 
to-day  may  still  eat  and  live  : the  pamphlet  of  two  hundred  pages 
which  advanced  by  many  years  the  reign  of  justice,  of  mercy,  and 
of  humanity — the  ‘ Treatise  on  Tolerance.’ 

That  sermon,  of  which  the  text  is  Calas,  is  one  of  the  most 
powerful  indictments  ever  written  against  the  religious  who  have 
enough  religion  to  hate  and  persecute,  but  not  enough  to  love 
and  succour.  Voltaire  was  no  Protestant,  but  that  ‘ Treatise  ’ 
helped  the  ‘ definite  affranchisement  ’ of  the  Protestant  in  Catholic 
countries  as  no  party  tract  ever  did.  It  gave  the  fatal  blow  to 
that  ‘ Gothic  legislation  ’ which,  if  it  was  dying,  still  showed  now 
and  then  a superhuman  strength  in  acts  of  fiendish  barbarism. 
Sooner  or  later,  said  Choiseul,  such  seed  as  is  sown  in  Voltaire’s 
Gospel  of  Tolerance  must  bear  fruit.  What  if  the  author  of  it 
had  thrown  decency  to  the  winds  in  the  4 Pucelle  ’ ? What  if, 
basing  his  attack  on  seemingly  irreconcilable  statements  and 
incorrect  dates,  he  had  in  keen  mockery  attacked  the  Scripture 
and  Christianity  ? Not  the  less  ‘ the  true  Christian,  like  the  true 
philosopher,  will  agree  that  in  making  tolerance  and  humanity 
prevail,  Voltaire,  whether  he  wished  it  or  no,  served  the  religion 
of  the  God  of  peace  and  mercy : and,  instead  of  anger,  will  feel 
a reverent  admiration  for  the  ways  of  a Providence  which,  for 
such  a work,  chose  such  a workman.’ 


JE t.  69] 


THE  ‘TREATISE  ON  TOLERANCE 


409 


Voltaire  did  not  avow  his  little  Treatise.  What  censor  would 
or  could  have  licensed  such  a thing  ? For  a long  time  it  was  not 
even  printed.  By  Voltaire?  What  could  make  you  think  so? 
The  old  owl  of  Ferney  screwed  up  his  brilliant  eyes  and  chuckled. 
‘ Mind  you  do  not  impute  to  me  the  little  book  on  Tolerance.  . . . 
It  will  not  be  by  me.  It  could  not  be.  It  is  by  some  good  soul 
who  loves  persecution  as  he  loves  the  colic.’ 

That  he  foresaw  it  would  be  one  of  his  best  passports  to  pos- 
terity, did  not  make  him  in  the  least  degree  more  anxious  to  own 
it  to  his  contemporaries.  Abundant  experience  had  proved  to 
him  that  if  it  is  4 an  ill  lot  to  be  a man  of  letters  at  all,  there  is 
something  still  more  dangerous  in  loving  the  truth.’ 

So  through  the  year  1768  the  4 Treatise  on  Tolerance  ’ was 
passed  from  hand  to  hand  in  Paris  : by  a good  priest,  you  under- 
stand ; by  nobody  in  particular.  And  at  Ferney,  Voltaire,  having 
preached  tolerance,  practised  it. 

At  the  convent  into  which  Nanette  Calas  had  been  thrown 
was  a good  Superior  who  had  loved  and  pitied  the  girl  and  poured 
out  upon  her  the  thwarted  maternal  instincts  of  her  woman’s 
heart.  It  is  very  pleasant  to  see  how  a hot  partisan  like  Voltaire 
not  only  gave  the  Sister  her  due,  but  dwelt  tenderly  on  her 
tenderness ; sent  on  to  his  brethren,  the  philosophers,  her  kind 
little  letters  to  Nanette  ; and  warmed  his  old  heart  at  the  pure 
flame  of  the  affection  of  this  ‘good  nun  of  the  Visitation.’ 

Then,  too,  when  in  June  the  liberal-minded  citizens  of  Geneva 
appealed  against  the  condemnation  of  rival  Rousseau’s  ‘ Emile,’ 
and  when  on  August  8 that  condemnation  was  revoked  at  their 
request,  Voltaire  was  quite  as  delighted  as  if  Jean  Jacques  had 
always  been  his  dearest  friend,  and  as  if  he  had  thought  any 
thing  about  that  hysterical  ‘ Emile,’  except  the  ‘Profession  of  the 
Savoyard  Vicar,’  worth  the  paper  it  was  written  on.  Tolerance 
Tolerance  ! 

About  the  same  time  he  produced  the  ‘Catechism  of  an 
Honest  Man,’  which  had  a like  burden ; and  before  the  year  1768 
was  out  he  was  deeply  engaged  in  helping  other  unfortunates 
whom  the  case  of  Calas  and  that  ‘ Treatise  ’ threw  at  his  feet. 

In  1740  a daring  Protestant  gentleman  of  that  fatal  Lan- 
guedoc, called  Espinas,  or  Espinasse,  gave  supper  and  a bed  to  a 
minister  of  his  faith.  For  this  heinous  crime  he  was  condemned 


410 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1764 


to  the  galleys  for  life,  and  had  been  there  three-and-twenty  years 
when  his  story  reached  Ferney.  Through  Voltaire’s  exertions  he 
was  released  in  1763,  and  came  to  Switzerland,  where  his  wife 
and  children  were  living  as  paupers,  on  public  charity.  After 
interceding  passionately  for  them  for  not  less  than  three  years, 
Voltaire  succeeded  in  getting  back  a small  part  of  the  property 
which  Espinas  had  forfeited  on  his  imprisonment. 

After  Espinas  came  the  case  of  Chaumont.  In  February  1764 
Voltaire  was  writing  to  Vegobre  to  say  that  Choiseul  had  de- 
livered from  the  galleys  one  Chaumont,  whose  crime  had  con- 
sisted in  listening  to  an  open-air  Protestant  preacher — ‘ praying 
to  God  in  bad  French.’  He  had  companions  in  irons  whom 
Voltaire’s  power  and  pity  could  not  free.  But  Chaumont  himself 
came  to  Ferney  to  thank  his  benefactor ; and  all  Voltaire’s  little 
entourage  made  him  compliments,  including  Father  Adam. 

Though  that  ‘ Tolerance  ’ was  not  yet  tolerated  in  Paris ; 
though  at  the  beginning  of  1764  it  was  forbidden  to  go  through 
the  post,  as  if  it  contained  the  germs  of  some  infectious  disease  ; 
though  Calas  was  still  unexculpated,  and  even  powerful  Choiseul 
could  not  push  his  authority  far  enough  to  liberate  the  innocent 
companions  of  Chaumont,  still  Voltaire  thought  that  he  saw  light 
in  the  sky,  and  in  the  east  the  beginning  of  a beautiful  day. 
4 Everything  I see,’  he  wrote  in  prophetic  utterance  on  April  2, 

‘ sows  the  seeds  of  a Revolution  which  must  infallibly  come.  I 
shall  not  have  the  pleasure  of  beholding  it.  The  French  reach 
everything  late,  but  they  do  reach  it  at  last.  Young  people  are 
lucky : they  will  see  great  things.’  And  again : ‘ I shall  not 
cease  to  preach  Tolerance  upon  the  housetops  . . . until  perse- 
cution is  no  more.  The  progress  of  right  is  slow,  the  roots  of 
prejudice  deep.  I shall  never  see  the  fruits  of  my  efforts,  but 
they  are  seeds  which  must  one  day  germinate.’ 

Tolerance  ! Tolerance  ! Between  writing  it,  living  it,  dream- 
ing it,  the  thing  might  have  become  a monomania,  a possession. 
Only  its  great  apostle  was  also  a Frenchman — the  most  versatile 
son  of  the  most  versatile  people  on  earth. 

At  the  end  of  1768  he  had  been  privately  circulating  in  Paris 
a gay  novelette  in  verse  called  ‘ Gertrude,  or  the  Education  of  a 
Daughter  ’ ; and  a little  later  he  was  reviewing  English  books  for 
a Parisian  literary  paper. 


JRt.  70]  THE  ‘ TREATISE  ON  TOLERANCE 


411 


Then,  too,  in  the  autumn  of  1768  the  young  Prince  de  Ligne — 
eighteen  years  old,  bright,  shallow,  amusing,  ‘ courtier  of  all 
Courts,  favourite  of  all  kings,  friend  of  all  philosophers  ’ — had 
been  staying  at  Ferney.  It  is  said  that  before  his  arrival  Voltaire, 
dreadfully  fearing  he  should  be  bored,  took  some  strong  medicine, 
so  that  he  could  say  (truthfully  this  time)  he  was  too  ill  to 
appear.  This  very  self-pleased  and  much-admired  young  Prince 
is  now  chiefly  known  to  the  world  by  the  account  he  has  given 
of  Voltaire  intime . 

He  writes  vividly  both  of  his  host’s  greatness  and  littleness  ; 
tells  how  he  loved  the  English,  bad  puns,  and  his  best  clothes ; 
how  his  torrents  of  visitors  wearied  him,  and  what  artful  designs 
he  invented  to  get  rid  of  them ; how  good  he  was  to  the  poor ; 
how  ‘ he  made  all  who  were  capable  of  it  think  and  speak  ’ ; was 
charmed  to  find  a musical  talent  in  his  shoemaker — 4 Mon  Dieu  ! 
Sir,  I put  you  at  my  feet — I ought  to  be  at  yours  ’ — how  he 
thought  no  one  too  obscure  and  insignificant  to  cheer  with  the 
liveliest  wit  and  the  most  amazing  vivacity  ever  possessed  by 
a man  of  sixty-nine. 

Ligne  says  he  was  quite  delighted  with  the  4 sublime  reply  ’ 
of  a regimental  officer  to  the  question  4 What  is  your 
religion  ? ’ 

4 My  parents  brought  me  up  in  the  Roman  faith.’  4 Splendid 
answer  ! ’ chuckles  Voltaire.  4 He  does  not  say  what  he  is  ! ’ 

Early  in  1764  young  Boufflers,  the  son  of  that  Madame  de 
Bouffiers  who  was  the  mistress  of  King  Stanislas,  and  perhaps 
Madame  du  Chatelet’s  predecessor  in  the  heart  of  Saint-Lambert, 
also  came  to  Ferney.  Bouffiers  was  travelling  incognito  as  a 
young  French  artist.  He  did  not  forget  to  write  and  tell  his 
mother  of  his  warm  reception  by  her  old  acquaintance.  Voltaire, 
with  that  rare  adaptability  of  his,  easily  accommodated  himself  to 
his  guest’s  youth  and  treated  him  en  camarade ; while  Bouffiers, 
on  his  part,  drew  with  his  artist’s  pencil  a clever  rough  sketch  of 
his  host  when  he  was  losing  at  chess  with  Father  Adam. 

A further  distraction  from  4 Tolerance  ’ and  the  Calas  came 
in  the  shape  of  the  first  public  performance  of  4 Olympie  ’ in 
Paris,  on  March  17,  1764.  It  had  already  been  named  by  the 
public  4 0 l’impie ! ’ — a title  the  author  was  by  no  means  going 
to  apply  to  himself ; while  as  for  it  applying  to  the  piece — 


412 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIEE 


[1764-65 


‘ Nothing  is  more  pious.  I am  only  afraid  that  it  will  not  be 
good  for  anything  but  to  be  played  in  a convent  of  nuns  on  the 
abbess’s  birthday.’ 

‘ Olympie  ’ was  well  received.  But  it  was  feeble,  in  spite  of 
those  many  alterations  of  which  the  indefatigable  author  vigor- 
ously said  ‘ You  must  correct  if  you  are  eighty.  I cannot  bear 
old  men  who  say  “I  have  taken  my  bent.”  Well,  then,  you  old 
fools,  take  another  ! ’ 

He  also  said  that  he  had  written  it  chiefly  to  put  in  notes  at 
the  end  on  suicide,  the  duties  of  priests,  and  other  subjects  in 
which  he  was  interested ; so  it  was  not  wonderful  that  even  his 
friends  had  to  own  it  a failure. 

When  another  play  of  his,  called  ‘ The  Triumvirate,’  was 
performed  in  July — purporting  to  be  the  work  of  an  ex- Jesuit, 
and  having  cost  its  dauntless  master  more  trouble  in  rewriting 
and  altering  than  any  of  his  other  pieces — it  was  confessed  a 
disaster  by  everyone. 

But,  after  all,  both  pieces  had  served  as  a distraction  to  their 
author ; so  they  had  their  worth  and  use. 

Another  event  in  the  spring  of  1764  also  changed  the  current 
of  his  thoughts,  turned  them  back  to  his  far-away  youth,  and  to 
the  strifes  and  weariness  of  a Court  he  had  renounced  for  ever. 
On  April  15  died  Madame  de  Pompadour.  Voltaire  was  not 
behindhand  in  acknowledging  that  he  owed  her  much.  To  be 
sure,  she  had  supported  ‘ that  detestable  Crebillon’s  detestable 
Catilina,’  and  had  not  been  always  a faithful  friend  in  other 
respects.  But  she  had  been  as  faithful  as  her  position  permitted. 
She  had  had,  too,  ‘ a just  mind  ’ : she  ‘ thought  aright.’ 

Of  the  easy  manner  in  which  Voltaire  and  his  century 
regarded  her  morals  it  need  only  be  said  that  it  affords  an  excel- 
lent insight  into  theirs. 

‘ Cornelie-Chiffon  ’ (as  Voltaire  called  Marie  Dupuits)  ‘ gave 
us  a daughter  ’ in  June.  Before  that  date,  Mademoiselle  Dupuits, 
her  sister-in-law,  portioned  out  of  the  ‘ Corneille  Commentary,’ 
had  been  married.  Ferney  was  the  resort  of  innumerable 
English,  who  came  to  see  M.  de  Voltaire’s  plays,  and  told  him 
what  they  thought  of  them  with  their  native  candour.  The  first 
volume  of  ‘ The  Philosophical  Dictionary  ’ slipped  out  in  July 
1764  anonymously,  ‘smelling  horribly  of  the  fagot.’  Voltaire 


Mt.  70-71]  THE  ‘TREATISE  ON  TOLERANCE’ 


413 


of  course  swore  industriously  that  he  had  nothing  to  do  with  that 
‘infernal  Portatif,’  and  of  course  deceived  nobody. 

In  September  he  smuggled  it,  by  a very  underhand  trick  and 
with  the  connivance  of  some  booksellers  of  Geneva,  into  that  town. 

His  friends,  the  Tronchins,  were  so  angry  at  the  ruse  that 
through  their  agency  the  ‘Dictionary’  was  burnt  there  in  the 
same  month  by  the  executioner. 

And  then  that  great  work,  the  rehabilitation  of  the  Calas,  was 
completed  at  last.  In  June  1764  the  new  trial  had  been  begun. 
On  March  9,  1765,  exactly  three  years  since  he  had  paid  for  it  the 
extreme  penalty  of  that  savage  law,  Calas  was  declared  innocent 
of  the  murder  of  his  son.  With  his  innocence  was  re-established 
that  of  his  whole  family,  of  Jeannette  Viguiere,  and  of  young 
Lavaysse.  The  accused  had  to  constitute  themselves  prisoners 
at  the  Conciergerie  as  a matter  of  form.  There  all  their  friends 
visited  them,  including  Damilaville,  who  wrote  of  the  visit  to 
Voltaire.  Still  well  known  is  Carmontel’s  famous  engraving  of 
this  prison  scene,  with  Lavaysse  reading  to  the  family,  including 
Jeannette,  his  ‘ Memoir  ’ on  their  case. 

The  Council  who  tried  them  had  five  sittings,  each  four  hours 
in  length,  and  a sixth  which  lasted  eight  hours.  There  were 
forty  judges  who  were  unanimous  in  their  verdict — ‘ Perfectly 
innocent.’ 

As  all  the  money  subscribed  for  Madame  Calas  by  Voltaire’s 
efforts  had  been  swallowed  up  in  law  expenses  and  long  journeys, 
these  forty  judges  petitioned  the  King  for  a grant  to  her  and  her 
children.  And  his  Majesty  presented  them  with  handsome  gifts 
of  money.  The  family  then  asked  him  if  he  would  object  to 
them  suing  the  Toulouse  magistrates  for  damages. 

But  of  this  course  Voltaire  disapproved.  ‘Let  well  alone,’  he 
said  in  substance : and  they  did. 

It  must  be  observed  that  not  only  had  the  sullen  Parliament 
of  Toulouse  put  every  obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  new  trial  taking 
place,  but  that  it  never  ratified  the  judgment  of  the  Council  of 
Paris.  But  that  mattered  little.  The  worse  that  Toulouse  could 
do  was  done. 

One  of  the  magistrates,  the  infamous  David  de  Beaudrigue, 
‘paid  dearly  for  the  blood  of  the  Calas.’  In  February  1764  he 
was  degraded  from  his  office.  He  afterwards  committed  suicide. 


414 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1765 


That  innocent  blood  was  indeed  on  him  and  his  children.  His 
grandson  fell  a victim  to  the  fury  of  the  tigers  of  the  Revolution, 
who  had  not  forgotten  the  drama  of  the  Rue  des  Filatiers. 

When  the  courier  came  with  the  news  of  the  verdict  to  Ferney, 
young  Donat  Calas  was  with  Voltaire,  and  Voltaire  said  that  his 
old  eyes  wept  as  many  tears  as  the  boy's.  In  a passion  of  delight 
he  wrote  to  Cideville  that  this  was  the  most  splendid  fifth  act  ever 
seen  on  a stage. 

But  he  had  not  done  with  the  Calas  yet.  The  King’s  gifts  of 
money  were  insufficient.  So  Voltaire  got  up  subscriptions  for 
engravings  of  Carmontel’s  picture,  and  made  all  his  rich  friends 
subscribe  handsomely  for  copies.  One  hung  over  his  own  bed  for 
the  rest  of  his  life.  * 

Peter  and  Donat  Calas  settled  in  Geneva.  When  in  1770 
their  mother  and  Lavaysse  visited  them  there,  they  all  came  on 
to  Ferney.  Voltaire  said  that  he  cried  like  a child.  He  never 
forgot  to  do  everything  in  his  power  to  benefit  and  help  the  two 
young  men,  and  gave  at  least  one  of  them  employment  in  his 
weaving  industry  when  he  established  it  at  Ferney. 

The  Calas  case  was  not  without  wide  results  on  current 
literature,  art,  and  the  drama. 

Coquerel,  who  wrote  a history  of  the  case,  states  that  there  are 
no  fewer  than  one  hundred  and  thirteen  publications  relating  to  it. 
It  forms  the  subject  of  ten  plays  and  ‘ seven  long  poems.’ 

Besides  Carmontel’s  engraving,  there  are  pictures  of  ‘ Jean 
Calas  saying  Good-bye  to  his  Family,’  ‘Voltaire  promising  his 
support  to  the  Calas  Family,’  and  many  others. 

But  its  most  important,  its  one  immortal  result,  was  the 
‘ Treatise  on  Tolerance  ’ — the  work  of  the  man  without  whom 
Calas  would  have  never  been  avenged,  and  Vinfame  been  left 
unchecked  till  the  Revolution. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  over-estimate  the  nobility  of  Voltaire’s 
part  in  the  redemption  of  the  Calas. 

A man  who  did  not  love  him  said  justly  that  such  a deed 
would  cover  a multitude  of  sins.  ‘ Oh  mon  amie!  le  bel  emploi 
du  genie  ! ’ wrote  Diderot  to  Mademoiselle  Voland.  . . . ‘ What 
are  the  Calas  to  him  ? Why  should  he  stop  the  work  he  loves  to 
defend  them  ? If  there  were  a Christ,  surely  Voltaire  would  be 
saved.’ 


Mt.71]  THE  6 TREATISE  OF  TOLERANCE  ’ 


415 


When  one  reflects  on  the  enormous  expenditure  of  time, 
labour,  and  money  the  case  required  of  him,  and  the  fact  that  he 
thoroughly  knew  the  value  of  each,  Diderot’s  words  do  not  seem 
greatly  exaggerated. 

To  suppose  he  had  any  thought  of  his  own  glory  in  the  matter 
is  not  reasonable.  He  persistently  gave  the  lion’s  share  of  the 
credit  to  Elie  de  Beaumont.  He  himself  had  already  as  much 
fame  as  man  could  want.  If  he  had  wanted  more,  he  knew  to  it 
a thousand  avenues  quicker  and  safer  than  the  long  Via  Dolorosa 
of  a legal  reparation. 

That  kind  of  fame  would  only  endanger  his  person  and 
prestige,  and  make  his  chances  of  being  well  received  by  King 
and  Court  weaker  than  ever. 

But  that  he  did  recognise  Calas  as  one  of  the  best  works  of  his 
nobler  self  seems  likely  from  a trifling  incident. 

Thirteen  years  later,  on  his  last  visit  to  Paris,  someone,  seeing 
the  crowds  that  surrounded  him  whenever  he  went  out  into  the 
street,  asked  a poor  woman  who  this  person  was  who  was  so  much 
followed. 

4 It  is  the  saviour  of  the  Calas,’  she  replied. 

No  flattery,  no  honour,  no  acclamation  of  that  glorious  time 
gave  Voltaire,  it  is  said,  so  keen  a pleasure  as  that  simple  answer. 


416 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1765 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

THE  SIRVENS  AND  LA  BARRE 

Desnoiresterres  has  well  observed  that  this  mad  eighteenth 
century  produced  the  extraordinary  anomaly  of  being  at  once  that 
of  scepticism  and  intolerance,  of  the  most  degraded  superstition 
and  the  most  barefaced  irreligion.  It  might  be  thought — it  is 
generally  thought — that  persecution  would  certainly  not  proceed 
from  persons  who  were  too  indifferent  to  their  faith  to  make  the 
slightest  attempt  to  live  up  to  it.  But  if  the  history  of  religious 
hatred  be  closely  followed,  it  will  be  seen  that  it  is  precisely  these 
persons  who  are  the  cruellest  persecutors.  Perhaps  they  act  on 
that  old  principle  of  compensation — ‘ Give  me  the  desire  of  my 
soul,  and  the  gratification  of  my  flesh,  and  by  the  scaffold,  the 
torture,  and  the  wheel,  I will  bring  souls  to  the  faith  I only 
profess.’  There  seems  no  other  explanation  of  the  fact  that  this 
‘ rotten  age  whose  armies  fled  without  a fight  before  a handful  of 
men  ; this  age  which  laughed  at  everything  and  cared  for  nothing 
but  wit,’  was  as  fiercely  intolerant  and  besottedly  bigot  as  the  age 
of  Ignatius  Loyola  and  Catherine  de  Medici. 

The  case  of  Calas  was  but  one  of  many.  It  was  not  finished 
when  another,  scarcely  less  sombre  and  terrible,  was  brought 
under  Voltaire’s  notice. 

In  1760  there  lived  near  fanatic  Toulouse,  at  a place  called 
Castres,  a Protestant  family  of  the  name  of  Sirven.  Sirven  pere, 
aged  about  fifty- one,  was  a professional  feudiste  ; that  is  to  say, 
he  was  a person  learned  in  feudal  tenures,  who  kept  registers  and 
explained  the  obsolete  terms  of  ancient  leases,  and  thus  was 
brought  much  in  contact  with  the  great  families  of  the  province. 
Thoroughly  honest,  honourable,  and  respectable,  his  wife  shared 
these  qualities  with  him.  They  had  three  daughters — Marie 
Anne,  who  was  now  married,  Jeanne  and  Elizabeth,  who  both 
lived  at  home. 


Mt.  71] 


THE  SIRVENS  AND  LA  BARRE 


417 


Elizabeth,  the  youngest,  was  feeble-minded  : but  on  that  very 
account — on  that  old,  tender  parental  principle  of  making  up  by 
love  for  the  cruelty  of  fortune — she  was  the  dearest  to  her  parents. 
On  March  6,  1760,  the  poor  girl  suddenly  disappeared.  After 
vainly  hunting  for  her  all  day,  when  Sirven  reached  his  home 
at  night  he  was  told  that  the  Bishop  of  Castres  desired  to  see 
him.  He  went.  The  Bishop  informed  him  that  Elizabeth,  whose 
deficient  brain  was  certainly  not  equal  to  weighing  the  pros  and 
cons  of  different  religions,  had  ardently  desired  to  become  a 
Roman  Catholic,  and  that  to  receive  instruction  on  that  faith  she 
had  been  placed  in  the  Convent  of  the  Black  Ladies.  The  poor 
father  received  the  news  more  calmly  than  might  have  been 
expected.  He  said  that  he  bad  no  idea  his  daughter  wished  to 
change  her  religion ; but  that  if  the  change  was  to  be  for  her 
good  and  happiness,  he  would  not  oppose  it. 

The  situation  was  a strange  one.  But  it  had  a very  common 
solution.  The  Bishop  had  a strong-minded  sister  who  had  caught 
that  ‘ epidemic  of  the  time/  which  the  infected  called  religious 
zeal. 

Meanwhile  poor  Elizabeth  in  her  convent,  having  been  first 
4 taught  her  catechism  by  blows/  as  Voltaire  said,  began,  like 
many  another  weak  intellect  undet  strong  suggestion,  to  see 
visions  and  to  dream  dreams.  She  became,  in  short,  what  a nun 
might  call  a saint,  but  what  a doctor  would  call  a lunatic.  The 
Black  Ladies  declared  that  she  implored  them  to  corporally 
chastise  her  for  the  good  of  her  soul ; and  it  was  certainly  a fact 
that  when  she  was  returned  to  her  parents  in  the  October  of  1760, 
quite  insane,  her  body  was  ‘ covered  with  the  marks  of  the  convent 
whip.’  If  her  father  complained  loudly  of  her  treatment,  such 
complaints,  though  natural,  were  infinitely  imprudent.  My  Lord 
Bishop  and  the  authorities  kept  a very  keen  official  eye  on 
M.  Sirven,  and  harried  him  on  the  subject  of  his  daughter 
whenever  a chance  offered.  The  sheep  had  gone  back  to  the 
wolves,  the  brand  to  the  burning.  Rome  never  yet  sat  down  with 
folded  hands,  as  other  Churches  have  done,  and  calmly  watched 
her  children  desert  her. 

In  the  July  of  1761  the  Sirvens  moved  to  a village  called 
St.  Alby,  that  Sirven  might  be  near  some  business  on  which  he 
was  engaged. 


E E 


418 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1765 


On  December  17,  1761,  when  he  was  staying  at  the  chateau 
of  a M.  d’Esperandieu,  for  whom  he  was  working,  Elizabeth 
slipped  out  of  her  home  at  night,  and  never  returned.  Her 
mother  and  sister  had  at  once  given  notice  of  her  disappearance, 
and  prayed  that  a search  might  be  made.  Sirven,  called  home, 
arrived  on  the  morning  of  the  18th,  and  caused  a still  further 
search  to  be  prosecuted.  But  in  vain.  A fortnight  passed.  On 
January  8, 1762,  the  unhappy  father,  who  fancied,  not  unnaturally, 
that  Elizabeth  might  have  been  decoyed  away  by  her  Roman 
friends,  had  to  go  in  pursuit  of  his  trade  to  a place  called 
Buriats. 

That  same  night  the  body  of  Elizabeth  was  discovered  in 
a well  at  St.  Alby. 

The  authorities  were  at  once  communicated  with,  and  the 
judge  of  Mazamet,  the  David  de  Beaudrigue  of  the  case.  The 
body  was  taken  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville.  There  was  abundant  local 
testimony  to  the  effect  that  the  poor  girl  had  often  been  seen 
looking  into  the  well,  muttering  to  herself.  The  case  was  clearly 
one  of  suicide  or  misadventure.  Either  was  possible.  But  that 
it  was  one  of  the  two  was  morally  certain. 

A lodger  in  the  Sirvens’  house  at  St.  Alby  could  swear  that 
only  the  footsteps  of  one  person  had  been  heard  descending  the 
stairs  of  the  house  on  the  night  of  December  17,  before  Jeanne 
had  hastened  to  those  lodgers  and  told  them  of  Elizabeth’s  flight. 
In  addition  to  this,  while  the  poor  girl  herself  had  been  tall  and 
strong,  her  mother  was  feeble  and  old ; her  married  sister,  who 
was  staying  with  her  parents,  was  also  feeble  and  in  ill-health ; 
and  Elizabeth  could  easily  have  resisted  Jeanne,  had  she 
attempted,  unaided,  to  be  her  murderess. 

Singly,  then,  none  of  the  three  could  have  killed  Elizabeth ; 
and  that  they  had  done  it  together,  apart  from  the  inherent 
improbability  and  the  inhuman  nature  of  such  a crime,  there  was 
not  an  iota  of  evidence  to  prove.  As  in  the  case  of  Calas,  no  cries 
had  been  heard,  and  there  were  no  signs  of  a struggle. 

As  for  Sirven  himself,  he  could  declare  an  alibi.  On  the 
night  in  question  he  had  supped  and  slept  at  the  chateau  of 
M.  d’Esperandieu. 

But  such  evidence,  or  any  evidence,  weighed  nothing  with  a 
people  who  had  at  the  moment  innocent  Calas  in  irons  in  the 


<Et.  71] 


THE  SIRVENS  AND  LA  BARRE 


419 


dungeon  of  Toulouse.  ‘ It  passes  for  fact  among  the  Catholics 
of  the  province/  wrote  Voltaire  in  irony  that  came  very  near 
to  being  the  literal  truth,  ‘ that  it  is  one  of  the  chief  points  of 
the  Protestant  religion  that  fathers  and  mothers  should  hang, 
strangle,  or  drown  all  their  children  whom  they  suspect  of  having 
any  penchant  for  the  Roman  faith.’  Sirven’s  public,  like  Calas’s, 
had  4 a need  of  dramatic  emotion  enough  to  change  truth  into 
a legend.’ 

What  use  to  examine  the  body  ? No  facts  will  alter  our  con- 
viction. Beaudrigue,  savage  bigot  though  he  was,  had  known 
his  profession  ; the  Beaudrigue  of  this  case,  Trinquier,  the  judge 
of  Mazamet,  was  a little  ignorant  tradesman,  who  through  the 
whole  affair  showed  himself  to  be  a tool  in  clever  hands,  a wire 
pulled — at  Rome. 

At  first,  Sirven  was  mad  enough  to  rely  on  his  own  innocence, 
and  the  innocence  of  his  family,  to  save  them  all.  January  6 to 
10,  1762,  was  spent  in  examining  the  witnesses.  The  honest 
Catholic  villagers  of  St.  Alby  bore  testimony  to  a man  in  favour 
of  Sirven.  But  the  attitude  of  the  doctors  who  examined  the 
body  might  well  have  alarmed  him.  It  alarmed  his  friends  ; on 
their  advice  he  employed  an  avocat,  Jalabert. 

Jalabert  was  devoted  and  expert.  But  the  devotion  of  a 
saint  and  the  brilliancy  of  a genius  would  not  have  helped  the 
Sirvens. 

They  were  charged  with  the  murder  of  Elizabeth,  and 
instantly  took  their  decision.  Proofs  had  not  freed  Calas — why 
should  they  save  them  ? 4 Remembering  the  fury  of  the  people  ’ 

of  Toulouse,  ‘ they  fled  while  there  was  yet  time.’ 

They  stayed  at  their  old  home,  Castres,  at  the  house  of  a 
friend,  for  one  night.  Under  the  cover  of  the  next  they  walked 
through  rain,  mire,  and  darkness  to  five-miles  distant  Roque- 
combe.  So  far,  they  had  at  least  been  together. 

But  they  saw  very  clearly  now  that  they  could  not  hope  to 
escape  notice  if  they  travelled  en  famille. 

On  January  21  or  22  the  unhappy  father  tore  himself  from 
them,  and  for  a month  remained  hidden  among  the  mountains, 
only  ten  miles  from  Castres.  Then  he  moved  on.  Through  the 
snows  of  an  icy  winter  he  crossed  the  frontier,  arrived  at  Geneva, 
and  early  in  the  April  of  1762,  at  Lausanne. 


E E 2 


420 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1765 


His  family,  after  having  endured  infinite  perils  and  hardships, 
arrived  there  in  June.  On  the  way,  among  the  glaciers  and  in 
the  bitter  cold  of  a mountain  winter,  Marie  Anne  had  borne  a 
dead  child. 

They  had  one  consolation.  Their  flight  was  not  unnecessary. 
Three  Declarations  had  been  published  against  them  ; though 
it  was  not  until  March  29,  1764,  that  the  court  formally 
sentenced  the  parents  to  be  hanged,  and  the  daughters  to  witness 
that  execution,  and  then  to  perpetual  banishment  under  pain  of 
death. 

On  September  11  this  sentence  was  carried  out  in  effigy. 

By  that  time  the  generous  republicans  of  Berne  had  given 
Madame  and  her  daughters,  who  were  living  at  Lausanne,  a little 
pension  ; their  property  having,  of  course,  been  confiscated  to  the 
King.  Pere  Sirven  was  working  at  his  trade  at  Geneva,  and  so 
was  a near  neighbour  of  Voltaire’s. 

Moultou,  the  friend  and  correspondent  of  Rousseau,  brought 
the  Sirvens  one  day  to  Ferney.  Voltaire  already  knew  their 
history.  But  the  time  was  not  ripe  for  another  Quixotic  knight- 
errantry.  Calas  was  not  yet  vindicated.  Apart  from  the  inordi- 
nate amount  of  work  it  would  entail,  to  take  a second  case  in 
hand  might  militate  against  the  interests  of  the  first.  Then  the 
affair  of  the  Sirvens  would  present  far  greater  legal  difficulties. 
They  had  fled  the  kingdom.  They  would  have  to  be  acquitted,  if 
they  were  to  be  acquitted,  not  by  the  Parliament  of  Paris,  but  by 
the  Parliament  of  Toulouse.  And  Voltaire  was  too  much  of  an 
artist  not  to  be  perfectly  aware  that  this  cause  would  not  have 
the  eclat  and  the  dramatic  effects  of  the  Calas’.  ‘ It  lacked  a 
scaffold.’ 

But  when  the  Sirvens  clung  with  tears  about  his  feet  and 
implored  him,  as  the  saviour  of  Calas,  to  save  them  also — ‘ What 
was  I to  do  ? What  would  you  have  done  in  my  place  ? ’ ‘ It  is 

impossible  to  picture  so  much  innocence  and  so  much  wretched- 
ness.’ When  the  d’Argentals  reproached  him  as  unwise,  ‘ Here 
are  too  many  parricide  lawsuits  indeed,’  he  wrote.  4 But,  my 
dear  angels,  whose  fault  is  that  ? ’ And,  again,  as  his  excuse,  ‘ I 
have  only  done  in  the  horrible  disasters  of  Calas  and  the  Sirvens 
what  all  men  do : I have  followed  my  bent.  That  of  a philo- 
sopher is  not  to  pity  the  unfortunate,  but  to  serve  them.’  He 


Mt.  71] 


THE  SIRVENS  AND  LA  BARRE 


421 


records  himself  how  a priest  said  to  him,  ‘ Why  interfere  ? Let 
the  dead  bury  their  dead  ; ’ and  how  he  replied,  ‘ I have  found  an 
Israelite  by  the  roadside  : let  me  give  him  a little  oil  and  wine  for 
his  wounds.  You  are  the  Levite  : let  me  be  the  Samaritan.’ 

That  priest’s  answer,  if  any,  is  not  recorded. 

In  short  the  thing  was  done. 

On  March  8,  1765,  the  day  before  the  Calas  suit  was  triumph- 
antly concluded,  Voltaire  wrote  joyfully  that  the  generous  Elie 
de  Beaumont  would  also  defend  the  Sirvens.  After  that  March  9 
Voltaire  could  throw  himself  yet  more  thoroughly  into  the  case. 
Calas  is  vindicated  ! So  shall  the  Sirvens  be  ! 

But  if  there  had  been  need  for  patience  in  the  first  affair, 
there  was  a hundred  times  greater  need  in  the  second. 

The  Parliament  of  Toulouse  declined  to  give  up  its  papers, 
as  it  had  declined  before.  And  then  that  flight — 4 the  reason 
of  their  condemnation  is  in  their  flight.  They  are  judged  by 
contumacy.’ 

In  June,  too,  the  death  of  Madame  Sirven — ‘ of  her  sorrows  ’ 
— removed  a most  important  and  most  valuable  witness  for  the 
defence.  Then  the  Sirvens  had  no  money.  Voltaire  had  to 
supply  all — brains,  wealth,  influence,  labour,  literary  talent.  For 
seven  years  he  worked  the  case  with  an  energy  that  never  tired, 
an  enthusiasm  that  never  cooled.  When  it  had  been  going  on 
for  four  years,  he  wrote  that  it  ‘ agitated  all  his  soul.’  ‘ This 
ardour,  this  fever,  this  perpetual  exaltation  ’ — what  worker,  how- 
ever hot  and  persevering  he  fancy  himself,  is  not  ashamed  by  it, 
and  astounded  ? 

Voltaire  wrote  Memoirs  for  the  Sirvens.  He  won  over  the 
disapproving  d’Argentals  to  be  as  ‘ obstinate  ’ about  it  (the 
phrase  is  his  own)  as  he  was  himself.  He  got  up  a subscription 
to  which  the  great  Frederick  and  the  great  Catherine  of  Russia 
gave  generously ; and  Madame  Geoffrin  made  her  pro  teg  6,  Stanislas 
Augustus  Poniatowski — now  King  of  Poland — contribute  too. 

Finally,  Voltaire  succeeded  in  persuading  Sirven  to  return  to 
Mazamet,  where  the  case  was  re-tried  ; and  on  December  25, 
1771,  when  Voltaire  was  seventy- seven  years  old,  the  Parliament 
of  Toulouse  met  and  completely  exculpated  the  accused.  As 
Voltaire  said,  it  had  taken  them  two  hours  to  condemn  innocence, 
and  nine  years  to  give  it  justice.  Still,  the  thing  was  done. 


422 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1765 


In  1772  the  Sirvens  came  to  Ferney  to  thank  their  bene- 
factor, and  afforded  him  one  of  the  highest  of  human  pleasures  : 

‘ the  sight  of  a happiness  which  was  his  own  work.’ 

The  year  1765,  in  which  Voltaire  showed  so  much  public 
spirit,  was  not  privately  uneventful.  In  it  he  gave  up  Delices, 
which  he  had  bought  in  1755,  and  whose  place  Ferney  had 
altogether  usurped  in  his  heart.  In  1829  Delices  was  still  in 
possession  of  the  Tronchin  family,  from  whom  Voltaire  had 
rented  it.  In  1881  it  was  a girls’  school. 

In  1766  he  also  gave  up  the  lease  of  Chene,  his  house  in 
Lausanne. 

In  the  January  of  1765  Voltaire  and  Frederick  the  Great  were 
again  reconciled  after  a quarrel  and  a break  in  their  correspon- 
dence which  had  lasted  four  years.  Frederick,  forsooth,  had 
chosen  to  take  as  a personal  insult  the  fact  that  Voltaire  should 
waste  his  talents  writing  that  stupid  history  about  ‘ the  wolves 
and  bears  of  Siberia  ’ ! And  why  in  the  world  should  he  want 
to  dedicate  his  ‘ Tancred  ’ to  that  old  enemy  of  the  Prussian 
monarch’s,  Madame  de  Pompadour  ? Voltaire,  on  his  side,  was 
minded  to  write  any  history  he  chose,  and  dedicate  his  plays 
to  anybody  he  liked,  and  would  thank  Frederick  not  to  interfere. 

Then,  at  the  end  of  1764  he  hears  that  Frederick  is  ill — and 
to  the  wind  with  both  his  heat  and  his  coldness  at  once. 

Frederick  replied  rather  witheringly  to  the  peace  overtures 
on  January  1,  1765 : ‘I  supposed  you  to  be  so  busy  crushing 
Vinfame  . . . that  I did  not  dare  to  presume  you  would  think  of 
anything  else.’ 

But  the  ice  was  broken.  Both  succumbed  to  the  old,  old,  fatal, 
potent  charm.  They  wrote  to  each  other  about  ‘once  a fort- 
night ; ’ discussed  everything  in  heaven  and  earth ; and  until  they 
should  be  mortal  enemies  again,  were,  once  more,  more  than 
friends. 

Frederick  was  once  again,  too,  the  friend  not  only  of  Voltaire, 
but  of  Voltaire’s  country.  The  Seven  Years’  War  had  been  con- 
cluded in  1768  by  the  peace  of  Hubertsburg.  Frederick  kept 
Silesia  ; and  France,  with  her  feeble  ministry  and  her  doddering 
King,  lost,  to  England,  Canada,  Saint  Vincent,  Grenada, 
Minorca. 

Changes  were  rife  elsewhere  too.  Voltaire’s  friend  Elizabeth, 


Mt.  71] 


THE  SIEVENS  AND  LA  BARRE 


423 


Empress  of  Russia,  had  died  in  1762,  and  was  succeeded  nomin- 
ally by  the  miserable  Peter,  but  really  by  his  wife,  Catherine  the 
Great.  In  1763  Peter  disappeared  under  strong  suspicions  of 
poison,  and  Catherine  reigned  in  his  stead. 

Many  kings  and  potentates  have  been  named  the  Great,  but 
few  so  justly  as  Catherine. 

If  she  was  the  perpetrator  of  great  crimes,  this  woman  of 
three-and-thirty  was,  even  at  her  accession,  of  vast  genius,  of 
extraordinary  capacity  as  a ruler,  broad  and  liberal  in  her  aims, 
and  an  enlightened  lover  of  the  arts.  She  declared  that  since 
1746  she  had  been  under  the  greatest  obligations  to  Voltaire ; 
that  his  letters  had  formed  her  mind.  With  the  telepathy  of 
intellect,  these  two  master-minds  had  from  their  different  corners 
of  the  world  detected  each  other’s  greatness.  They  never  met  in 
the  flesh.  But  from  their  correspondence  it  is  easy  to  see  their 
close  spiritual  affinity.  Their  earliest  letters,  which  are  preserved, 
date  from  the  July  of  this  1765. 

Voltaire  shocked  even  Paris  and  Madame  du  Deffand  by  the 
airy  way  in  which  he  took  that  little  peccadillo  of  the  Empress’s, 

‘ that  bagatelle  about  a husband.’  4 Those  are  family  affairs,’  he 
said,  not  without  a wicked  twinkle  in  his  eyes,  ‘ with  which  I do 
not  mix  myself.’  It  is  certain  that,  whether  or  no  he  believed 
Catherine  a murderess,  he  regarded  her  as  a great  woman  and 
served  her  when  he  could. 

There  came  an  opportunity  in  August.  Her  Majesty  is  pleased 
to  admire  girls’  education  as  conducted  in  Switzerland,  and  sends 
Count  Biilow  to  arrange  for  a certain  number  of  S wiss  governesses 
to  be  brought  to  Moscow  and  Petersburg  to  instruct  the  noble 
jeunes  filles  of  those  cities. 

Splendid  idea  ! says  Voltaire.  But  that  1 bagatelle  about  a 
husband  ’ weighs  on  the  Puritan  conscience  of  Geneva.  It  is 
extraordinary  now  to  think  that  any  civilised  Government  could 
have  dared  so  to  interfere  with  personal  liberty  as  to  prevent 
women  over  age  going  to  teach  anyone  they  chose,  anywhere  they 
liked.  But  this  is  precisely  what  Geneva  did.  Voltaire  was 
exceedingly  angry.  The  refusal  reflected  on  him.  But  he  had 
done  his  best  for  Catherine,  though  in  vain. 

While  this  little  affair  was  going  on,  a new  friend,  the  young 
playwright  La  Harpe,  of  whom  Voltaire  was  to  see  more  hereafter, 


424  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1765 

and  an  old  friend,  whom  he  had  not  seen  for  seventeen  years, 
were  both  staying  with  him  at  Ferney. 

On  July  80  had  arrived  there  4 the  sublime  Clairon.’  She 
had  been  the  first  actress  of  her  day  when  Voltaire  had  known 
her  in  Paris.  Now  she  was  the  finest  tragic  actress  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  in  the  rich  maturity  of  her  two-and-forty 
years  a most  clever  and  cultivated  woman.  She  had  helped 
Voltaire’s  plays  enormously  ; some  she  had  made  for  him.  He 
said  so,  at  least.  Further,  she  was  one  of  the  philosophers.  In 
1761  she  had  protested  against  the  excommunication  of  actors 
as  a class  ; and  Voltaire,  remembering  Adrienne  Lecouvreur,  had 
seconded  her  with  all  the  force  and  irony  of  his  style. 

When  she  reached  Ferney  her  host  was  so  ill  that  she  had  to 
declaim  her  role  in  his  ‘ Orphan  of  China,’  which  cured  him  on 
the  spot.  Part  of  her  visit  he  hobbled  about  on  crutches,  crippled 
by  an  attack  of  sciatica  and  half  blind  from  an  affection  of  the 
eyes,  but  as  mentally  lively  and  alert  as  if  he  had  had  both  of 
those  requisites  for  happiness,  ‘ the  body  of  an  athlete  and  the 
soul  of  a sage.’ 

Mademoiselle  was  not  well  herself,  and  under  Tronchin.  But 
she  went  on  acting  against  the  express  orders  of  that  good 
physician.  It  was  in  her  blood,  as  it  was  in  Voltaire’s.  He  had 
entirely  rebuilt  his  theatre  for  her.  He  went  quite  mad  over  her 
superb  talent ; and  declared  that  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  he 
had  seen  perfection  in  any  kind.  Blind  though  his  avuncular 
affection  might  be,  when  he  beheld  Clairon  in  the  flesh  he  did 
not  suggest  that  Madame  Denis  (who,  with  her  sister,  was  acting 
too)  could  in  any  way  be  her  rival. 

Clairon  was  still  at  Ferney  in  August.  Soon  after  she  left, 
that  faithful  Damilaville  paid  a visit  there ; and  during  the 
summer  had  come,  under  the  chaperonage  of  Lord  Abingdon,  the 
famous  John  Wilkes.  * Voltaire  is  obliging  to  me  beyond  all 
description  ’ was  Wilkes’s  record  of  his  reception  ; while  Voltaire, 
on  his  part,  bore  enthusiastic  testimony  to  the  great  demagogue’s 
inexhaustible  life  and  wit. 

On  the  8th  or  9th  of  that  August,  when  Voltaire  was  acting 
or  telling  stories,  nimbly  gesticulating  with  those  crutches,  events 
of  sinister  importance  to  him,  and  of  importance  to  all  men  who 
hated  Vinfdvne>  were  taking  place  in  Abbeville. 


MADEMOISELLE  CLA  IRON. 

From  an  Engraving  after  a Picture  by  Carle  Van  Loo. 


Mt.  71] 


THE  SIRVENS  AND  LA  BARRE 


425 


On  one  of  those  days,  two  large  crucifixes  in  the  town, 
one  on  a bridge,  the  other  in  a cemetery,  were  shamefully  and 
blasphemously  mutilated.  The  town  was  naturally  very  angry. 
It  set  itself  busily  to  work  to  find  the  culprits.  A few  days 
later  three  suspected  persons,  all  boys  under  one-and-twenty, 
were  brought  up  before  the  authorities  and  questioned. 

While  their  examination  was  proceeding,  the  Bishop  of  the 
diocese  organised  a solemn  procession  through  the  streets  to  the 
places  where  the  sacrilege  had  been  committed,  and,  kneeling 
there,  invoked  pardon  for  the  blasphemers  in  ominous  words, 
as  ‘ men  who,  though  not  beyond  the  reach  of  God’s  mercy,  had 
rendered  themselves  worthy  of  the  severest  penalty  of  this 
world’s  law.’ 

The  mutilated  crucifixes  were  placed  in  a church,  to  which 
the  people  flocked  in  crowds,  and  in  a temper  of  mind  very 
different  from  that  of  Him  who  hung  there  in  effigy  and  in  the 
supreme  agony  had  prayed  for  His  murderers. 

On  September  26  a formal  decree  of  arrest  was  issued  against 
the  three  young  men,  d’Etallonde  de  Morival,  Moisnel,  and  the 
Chevalier  de  la  Barre. 

D’Etallonde  had  already  flown  to  Prussia ; partly,  no  doubt, 
because  his  conscience  was  ill  at  ease,  but  partly,  too,  because  he, 
or  his  friends,  knew  the  times  and  the  people.  In  Prussia  he 
was  afterwards  made,  through  Voltaire’s  influence,  an  officer  in 
Frederick’s  army. 

Moisnel  was  a timid  and  foolish  boy  of  eighteen. 

Jean  Francis  Lefebre,  Chevalier  de  la  Barre,  was  a young 
Norman,  not  yet  twenty  years  old.  He  had  been  educated  by 
a country  cure.  His  aunt,  the  Abbess  of  Willancourt,  had  given 
him  masters,  and  he  had  rooms  assigned  to  him  in  her  convent. 
It  is  thought,  but  is  not  certain,  that  La  Barre  was  in  the  army. 
What  is  certain,  is  that  this  clerical  education  had  been  a very 
bad  one.  The  Abbess,  if  not  a wicked  woman,  was  certainly  one 
who  loved  pleasure ; who  enjoyed  a joke,  even  if  it  were  against 
the  religion  she  professed  ; who  gave  rollicking  little  supper- 
parties  ; adored  her  good-looking  lively  young  scapegrace  of  a 
nephew,  and  permitted  him  not  only  to  sing  roystering  and  in- 
decent drinking  songs  with  foolish  companions  within  her  sacred 
walls,  but  to  keep  there  a library  which  included  not  only  some 


426  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1765-66 

very  indecorous  books — but  that  little  volume  which  ‘ smelt  of 
the  fagot,’  ‘ The  Philosophical  Dictionary.’ 

At  her  supper  parties  young  La  Barre  had  often  met  one 
Duval,  or  Belleval,  who,  it  is  said,  had  been  in  love  with  the 
Abbess,  and  was  not  a little  jealous  of  her  handsome  nephew. 
It  was  Duval  who  had  heard  young  La  Barre  chant  Rabelaisian 
ditties,  and  quote  * what  he  could  recollect  ’ from  the  ‘ Pucelle  ’ 
and  the  ‘ Epistle  to  Uranie.’  It  was  Duval  who  hated  him,  and 
Duval  who  denounced  him. 

On  October  1,  1765,  La  Barre  was  arrested  in  the  Abbey  of 
Longvilliers,  near  Montreuil.  Moisnel  was  also  arrested. 

On  October  4 the  Abbess  burnt  her  nephew’s  library,  which 
would  have  been  a prudent  act  if  she  had  done  it  thoroughly, 
but  she  did  not.  On  October  10  the  authorities  searched  the 
boy’s  rooms,  and  found  in  a press  some  indecent  literature — 
and  that  ‘ Philosophical  Dictionary.’ 

After  five  cross-examinations,  unhappy  young  Moisnel  said 
practically  what  his  judges  told  him  to  say,  not  only  respecting 
himself,  but  respecting  La  Barre.  He  swore  that  d’Etallonde 
had  mutilated  the  crucifixes,  an  assertion  to  which  La  Barre 
also  swore.  D’Etallonde  was  safe  in  Prussia.  Moisnel,  who 
was  delicate  in  health  and  in  horrible  fear  of  death,  lost  in  the 
trial  the  very  little  sense  he  had  ever  had.  Young  La  Barre,  on 
the  other  hand,  kept  all  his  pluck,  wit,  and  coolness. 

To  a charge  that,  on  the  Feast  of  the  Holy  Sacrament,  he 
and  his  two  companions  had  lingered  near  a religious  procession 
in  the  street,  and  neither  knelt  nor  uncovered  as  reverence  and 
custom  demanded,  he  pleaded  ‘ Guilty.’  He  was  in  a hurry,  he 
said,  and  had  no  evil  intentions. 

To  the  charge  that  to  a person  who  bade  him  take  another 
route  if  he  could  not  behave  himself,  he  had  replied  that  he 
looked  upon  the  Host  as  nothing  but  a piece  of  pastry  and  for 
his  part  could  not  swallow  all  the  apostolic  assertions,  he 
answered  that  he  might  have  used  some  such  words. 

It  is  not  unworthy  of  remark  that,  though  under  torture  he 
confessed  to  having  mutilated  the  crucifix  in  the  cemetery,  the 
judges  discovered  no  proof,  and  no  proof  ever  was  discovered, 
that  he  had  mutilated  the  crucifix  on  the  bridge.  It  is  very 
much  more  remarkable  that  in  his  sentence  the  affair  of  the 


Mt.  71-72]  THE  SIEVENS  AND  LA  BARRE 


427 


crucifixes  was  not  even  mentioned,  and  that  he  and  absent 
d’Etallonde  were  condemned  for  ‘ impiously  and  deliberately 
walking  before  the  Host  without  kneeling  or  uncovering  ; utter- 
ing blasphemies  against  God,  the  Saints,  and  the  Church  ; sing- 
ing blasphemous  songs,  and  rendering  marks  of  adoration  to 
profane  books.’ 

Now  it  will  be  allowed  by  any  fair-minded  person — whatever 
be  his  religion  or  irreligion — that  to  thus  insult  a faith,  dear  to 
millions  of  people  for  hundreds  of  generations,  merited  a sharp 
punishment. 

As  Voltaire  said,  4 it  deserved  Saint  Lazare.’ 

On  February  28,  1766,  d’Etallonde  and  La  Barre  were  con- 
demned to  have  their  tongues  torn  out  with  hot  irons,  their 
right  hands  to  be  cut  off,  and  to  be  burnt  to  death  by  a slow 
fire.  In  the  case  of  La  Barre  this  sentence  was  so  far  graciously 
remitted  that  he  was  to  be  beheaded  before  he  was  burnt ; but, 
on  the  other  hand,  he  was  further  condemned  to  the  torture 
Ordinary  and  Extraordinary,  to  extract  from  him  the  names  of 
his  accomplices.  Even  for  that  time  the  sentence  was  so  brutal 
— ‘ could  they  have  done  more  if  he  had  killed  his  father  ? ’ — 
that  no  one  believed  it  would  be  carried  out.  Against  absent 
d’Etallonde,  of  course,  it  could  not  be.  A public  appeal  was 
made  to  the  King.  Ten  of  the  best  avocats  of  Paris  declared 
the  sentence  illegal.  La  Barre  was  taken  to  the  capital,  and  his 
case  retried  there,  where  ‘ a majority  of  five  voices  condemned  to 
the  most  horrible  torments  a young  man  only  guilty  of  folly.’ 
He  was  taken  back  to  Abbeville.  All  through  the  trial  he  had 
borne  himself  with  a high  courage.  It  did  not  leave  him  now. 
He  recognised  many  old  acquaintances  on  the  way,  and  saluted 
them  gaily.  On  the  last  evening  of  his  life  he  supped  with  his 
confessor — a priest  whom  he  had  often  met  at  his  aunt’s  gay 
table.  ‘ Let  us  have  some  coffee,’  he  is  reported  to  have  said  ; 
‘it  will  not  prevent  my  sleeping.’  Bravado,  perhaps.  But 
bravado  and  brave  are  of  the  same  origin.  The  next  day, 
July  1,  1766,  began  with  the  torture.  On  his  way  to  the  scaf- 
fold the  poor  boy  recognised  among  the  cruel  crowd  of  spectators 
not  only  many  men  whom  he  had  called  friend,  but,  to  their  ever- 
lasting shame,  women  too.  That  ‘ barbarism  which  would  have 
made  even  drunken  savages  shudder,’  the  pulling  out  of  the 


428 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1766 


tongue,  was  so  barbarous  that  the  five  executioners  only  pre- 
tended to  do  it.  On  his  way  up  to  the  scaffold  La  Barre’s  shoe 
dropped  off.  He  turned  and  put  it  on  again.  He  bound  his 
own  eyes,  and  talked  calmly  to  the  executioners,  and  then  died 
with  4 the  firmness  of  Socrates  ’ — a harder  death. 

It  is  said  that  the  executioner  who  cut  off  the  head  did  it  so 
cleverly  that  the  spectators  applauded.  The  body  was  thrown 
to  the  flames — with  4 The  Philosophical  Thoughts  ’ of  Diderot ; 
the  ‘ Sopha  * of  the  younger  Cr6billon ; two  little  volumes  of 
Bayle ; and  ‘ The  Philosophical  Dictionary,’  which  was  supposed 
to  have  inspired  the  indecent  impiety  of  which  the  unhappy  boy 
had  been  guilty,  but  which  certainly  does  inspire  a religion  not  so 
unlike  the  religion  of  Christ  as  the  savage  hatred  which  killed 
La  Barre. 

The  event  caused  a fearful  sensation,  even  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  The  victim  was  so  young,  and  had  so  nobly  played  the 
man.  To  the  last  moment,  popular  opinion  had  believed  in  a 
reprieve.  One  of  the  people  who  so  believed  was  Voltaire. 
Vague  reports  of  the  case  had  reached  him  at  first.  Some  young 
fools  had  been  profaning  a church,  and  then  declaring  in  cross- 
examination  that  they  had  been  led  to  do  so  by  the  books  of  the 
Encyclopaedia ! But  then  wild  boys  who  commit  drunken 
frolics  do  not  read  books  of  philosophy ! 

And  when  the  tidings  of  that  1st  of  July  had  come — ‘ My 
dear  brother,  my  heart  is  withered.’  Grimm  wrote  boldly  and 
significantly  of  the  event  that  ‘ humanity  awaited  an  avenger.’ 
But  this  time  how  could  the  avenger  be  Voltaire  ? On  the  lips  of 
all  the  churchmen  were  the  words — Philosophy  hath  done  this 
thing.  This  is  where  your  fine  free- thinking,  your  mental  emanci- 
pation, lead  men  ! Certainly,  it  might  have  been  answered  that 
La  Barre  was  not  the  product  of  philosophy,  but  of  the  Church  ; 
educated  by  a cure,  finished  by  my  Lady  Abbess  ; sheltered,  after 
his  sin,  in  the  Abbey  of  Longvilliers  ; given  for  his  last  con- 
fessor a priestly  boon  companion  of  those  wild  suppers  at  the 
convent.  If  the  philosophers  mocked  at  religion,  what  of  the 
licentious  priests  of  that  wicked  day  ? Chateauneuf,  Chaulieu, 
Desfontaines — the  names  of  a score  of  others  must  have  come  to 
Voltaire’s  lips.  This  boy  had  put  the  teaching  of  such  men  into 
action.  The  more  fool  he  ; but  not  the  greater  criminal.  There 


JEt.  72] 


THE  S1RVENS  AND  LA  BARRE 


429 


were  a thousand  excuses  for  him  ; and  4 tears  come  easily  for  the 
youth  which  has  committed  sins  which  in  ripe  age  it  would  have 
redeemed.’ 

But  Voltaire,  with  a guilty  conscience  one  may  hope,  seems 
to  have  remembered  that  he  had  written  not  only  4 The  Philo- 
sophical Dictionary,’  but  the  ribald  4 Pucelle.’  He  might  thereby 
have  had  some  hand  in  La  Barre’s  undoing ; and  when  he  saw 
that  men  flung  the  whole  responsibility  for  that  sin  on  him  and 
his  brothers,  the  Encyclopaedists,  he  feared. 

By  July  14  he  had  gone  to  Rolle  in  Vaud.  He  had  been  there 
in  the  spring  for  his  health  ; now  he  went  for  his  safety. 

But,  safe  or  dangerous,  he  must  write  his  view  of  the  case. 
By  the  22nd  of  the  same  month  his  account  of  4 The  Death  of  the 
Chevalier  de  la  Barre  ’ was  complete.  Clear,  masterly,  succinct, 
it  is  perhaps  one  of  the  finest  tracts  in  the  cause  of  humanity  ever 
written,  even  by  Voltaire  himself.  On  July  25  he  was  asking  clever 
young  Elie  de  Beaumont  if  there  was  any  law,  date  1681,  by 
which  those  guilty  of  indecent  impieties  could  be  sentenced  to 
death.  He  had  himself  looked  everywhere  in  vain  ; which  was 
not  wonderful.  There  was  no  such  law.  The  ignorance  and 
fanaticism  of  the  judges  had  4 supposed  its  existence.’  4 This 
barbarity  occupies  me  day  and  night.’  True,  La  Barre  was  past  the 
reach  of  human  help.  But  Voltaire  could  hope  that  his  cries 
4 might  frighten  the  carnivorous  beasts  from  others.’  They  did 
that.  The  popular  fury  to  which  he  gave  mighty  voice  saved 
feeble  Moisnel.  After  La  Barre’s  death  the  judges  did  not  dare 
to  proceed  with  the  suit. 

In  1775,  when  d’Etallonde  was  staying  with  him  at  Ferney, 
Voltaire  wrote  a pamphlet  called  4 The  Cry  of  Innocent  Blood,’ 
which  had  as  its  object  the  restitution  of  his  civil  rights  to  that 
young  officer,  to  whom  Frederick  had  accorded  a long  leave  of 
absence.  If  he  never  obtained  that  restitution  or  full  justification 
for  the  memory  of  La  Barre,  at  least  he  never  ceased  to  try.  He 
worked  the  case  for  twelve  years,  and  his  labours  were  only 
stopped  by  death. 

Partly  for  his  own  safety ; partly  in  horror  of  a country 
which  could  sanction  a vengeance  so  awful ; partly  in  longing  for 
an  Elysium  where  he  and  his  brothers  might  live  and  speak 
as  free  men,  in  this  July  of  1766,  at  Rolle,  this  boy  Voltaire 


430 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1766 


conceived  the  mad  and  hot-headed  scheme  of  retiring,  with  all 
the  enlightened,  to  Cleves,  and  forming  there  a literary  society, 
with  a printing  press. 

A dream  ! A dream  ! The  other  philosophers  would  not  en- 
tertain the  idea  for  a moment.  Some  of  them,  at  least,  felt 
4 little  suppers  and  the  opera-comique  ’ to  be  among  the 
necessities  of  existence.  D’Alembert,  chief  of  them  all,  who  had 
refused  the  Presidency  of  the  Berlin  Academy  and  to  be  tutor  to 
Catherine  the  Great’s  son  for  a quiet  life,  and  Mademoiselle  de 
Lespinasse,  was  not  going  to  be  tempted  from  either — for  Cleves  ! 

‘I  see,’  wrote  Voltaire,  ‘ that  M.  Boursier  ’ (which  was  one  of 
his  innumerable  noms  de  guerre)  ‘ will  have  no  workmen.’  So  he 
went  back  to  Ferney. 

‘ The  suit  and  the  sacrifice  of  the  Chevalier  de  la  Barre  remain 
one  of  the  indelible  stains  with  which  the  magistracy  of  the 
eighteenth  century  tarnished  and  defiled  its  robes.’ 

That  ‘ Philosophical  Dictionary  ’ — of  which  the  thin  first 
volume  had  been  burnt  with  La  Barre ; which  in  March  1765  had 
been  publicly  destroyed  in  Paris  by  the  hangman ; which  Rome 
anathematised,  and  of  which  liberal  London  had  already  de- 
manded a fifth  edition — is  one  of  the  greatest  of  Voltaire’s  works, 
and  one  which  should  be  still  popular.  It  stands  alone,  without 
rival  or  counterpart.  Brief  articles  on  an  enormous  variety  of 
subjects  gave  infinite  scope  for  Voltaire’s  versatility.  Since  he 
had  written  that  first  article,  ‘ Abraham,’  which  had  made  even 
sullen  Frederick  laugh,  the  thing  had  been  its  author’s  common- 
place book.  If  an  article  is  too  daring  even  for  the  ‘ Encyclo- 
paedia ’ — put  it  in  the  ‘ Dictionary.’  If  one  feels  gay,  write 
buffoonery  ; or  seriously,  write  with  passion.  The  ‘ Dictionary  ’ 
had  room  for  everything.  Mockery,  sarcasm,  lightness,  wit, 
gaiety,  profundity,  the  most  earnest  thought,  the  most  burning 
zeal,  banter,  irony,  audacity — they  are  all  here.  ‘ The  Philo- 
sophical Dictionary  ’ has  well  been  said  to  be  ‘ the  whole  of  citizen 
Voltaire.’ 

He  had  smuggled  it  into  Geneva,  and  then  gaily  and  without 
a pang  of  conscience  denied  that  he  had  anything  to  do  with  its 
authorship.  4 If  there  is  the  least  danger  about  it,  please  warn 
me,  and  then  I can  disown  it  in  all  the  public  papers  with  my 
usual  candour  and  innocence.’ 


Mi.  72] 


THE  SIR  YENS  AND  LA  BARRE 


431 


He  kept  it  by  his  side,  and  wrote,  now  in  this  mood,  now  in 
that,  first  one  article  and  then  another,  until  it  numbered  eight 
volumes. 

Even  in  this  age  of  many  books  there  is  always  room  for 
another,  if  it  be  sufficiently  piquant  and  out  of  the  common.  The 
astonishing  variety  of  the  subjects,  and  the  not  less  marvellous 
versatility  of  the  style,  the  ease,  the  life  and  the  humour  of  those 
eight  volumes  are  qualities  which  may  well  appeal  to  the  most 
jaded  of  modern  readers.  Its  frequent  profanity,  indeed,  is  a blot 
dyed  too  deeply  into  the  texture  of  the  book  to  be  eradicable  by 
any  editor.  But,  apart  from  this,  to  the  bored  person — always  in 
search  of  a new  literary  sensation,  of  something  which  has  not 
been  done  a thousand  times  before,  of  something  that  will  not  be 
done  a thousand  times  again — may  be  well  recommended  a volume 
of  ‘ The  Philosophical  Dictionary.’ 


432 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1766 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

VOLTAIRE  AND  GENEVA  : VOLTAIRE  AND  LA  HARPE 

Now  Voltaire  was  not  only  genius  and  philanthropist,  he  was 
also  a country  gentleman. 

He  played  the  part  to  the  life.  He  amicably  exchanged  seeds 
and  bulbs  with  his  neighbours,  and  admired  their  gardens  in 
return  for  their  admiration  of  his  ; he  invited  them  to  dinner- 
parties and  theatricals  ; and,  like  many  another  of  his  class,  could 
not  for  the  life  of  him  help  interfering  in  local  politics. 

Geneva  was  a republic.  But  its  constitution  was  not  to 
modern  ideas — or  to  Voltaire’s  ideas — at  all  republican. 

In  the  governing  class,  which  consisted  of  the  Great  Council 
of  Two  Hundred,  the  Little  Council  of  Twenty-Five,  and  the 
Consistory  of  the  Clergy,  the  people  were  not  represented  at  all. 

These  people  were  divided  into  the  shopkeepers,  or  Bourgeoisie, 
who  demanded  a share  of  political  power ; and  the  journeymen 
mechanics,  who  were  not  only  without  any  political  rights,  but 
could  not  even  set  up  in  business  for  themselves,  occupy  any 
official  post,  or  go  into  the  liberal  professions.  These  (so-called) 
Natives,  a very  large  class,  were  the  descendants  of  foreigners 
who  had  settled  in  Geneva.  They  asked  for  the  rights  enjoyed 
by  the  Bourgeoisie ; while  the  Bourgeoisie,  scornfully  refusing 
the  demands  of  the  Natives,  themselves  asked  for  some  of  the 
privileges  enjoyed  by  the  Councils. 

Voltaire,  now  as  ever,  was  on  the  side  not  of  the  governing 
class,  but  of  the  people  who  had  a right  to  share  in  the  govern- 
ment, but  did  not ; and,  now  as  ever,  he  was  irresistibly  tempted 
to  interfere  in  what  was  not  his  business. 

In  the  autumn  of  1765,  ‘ in  spite  of  Espinas,  Calas,  and  Sirven, 
who  surround  me  ; of  wheels,  gallows,  galleys,  and  confiscations  ; 
and  of  Chevaliers  de  la  Barre  who  do  not  precisely  pour  balm  in 


Mt.  72] 


VOLTAIRE  AND  GENEVA 


433 


the  blood,7  he  began  to  take  upon  himself  the  highly  unnecessary 
and  stormy  role  of  peacemaker  between  the  Genevan  Bourgeoisie 
and  Magistracy. 

He  first  tried  to  get  up  some  mediatory  dinner-parties  at 
Ferney,  at  which  the  heads  of  these  two  parties  were  to  meet  and 
amicably  discuss  their  differences  ! The  Council  of  Twenty-Five 
responded  with  a chilly  dignity  that  it  was  very  much  obliged  to 
M.  de  Voltaire,  but  it  was  not  going  to  settle  political  disputes 
in  that  way ; while  four  of  the  Bourgeoisie  joyfully  accepted  so 
pleasant  an  invitation,  and  arrived  at  Ferney  in  M.  de  Voltaire’s 
carriage,  graciously  sent  for  their  convenience. 

These  four  guests  showed  such  a sweet  reasonableness  on 
all  topics  under  discussion,  that,  says  Voltaire,  writing  to  that 
haughty  Council,  there  is  surely  hope  of  a reconciliation  ? 

The  Council,  in  response,  will  be  obliged  if  the  Lord  of 
Ferney  will  consider  the  matter  closed. 

Not  he. 

At  the  request  of  the  Bourgeoisie  he  drew  up  a document 
stating  their  claims,  sent  it  to  France  and  begged  her  to  step  in 
and  settle  the  dispute. 

She  selected  as  mediator  her  new  envoy  at  Geneva,  M.  Hennin, 
who  arrived  on  December  16,  1765,  whose  mediation  did  not 
prosper  at  all,  but  who  was,  and  remained,  much  Voltaire’s  friend. 

By  this  time  the  Bourgeoisie  had  become  not  a little  aggressive 
and  dictatorial,  and  the  long  mediatory  dinner-parties  had  begun 
to  bore  Voltaire. 

After  all,  the  most  oppressed  class  were  the  Natives.  Two  of 
them  called  at  Ferney,  and  presently  brought  its  lord  a written 
statement  of  their  grievances  against  the  Bourgeoisie,  which  were 
not  few  or  slight.  He  promised  help,  entered  into  the  smallest 
details,  and  dismissed  them  with  memorable  words.  ‘You  are 
the  largest  part  of  a free  and  industrious  people,  and  you  are  in 
slavery.  ...  If  you  are  forced  to  leave  a country  which  your 
labours  make  prosperous,  I shall  still  be  able  to  help  and  protect 
you.’ 

He  wrote  a little  introductory  letter  to  that  statement  which 
the  Natives  purposed  to  present  to  M.  de  Beauteville,  the  new 
mediator  sent  by  France,  to  succeed,  if  that  might  be,  where 
Hennin  had  failed. 


F F 


434  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1766 

‘ What  is  the  Third  Estate  ? 7 said  the  Abbe  Sieyes.  ‘ Nothing.’ 
‘ What  ought  it  to  be  ? Everything.’ 

In  1766  it  was  nothing.  In  the  eye  of  the  law,  said  de 
Beauteville,  it  positively  did  not  exist. 

He  dismissed  the  petition  with  contumacy,  and  sent  the 
Natives  to  the  Councils,  who  received  them  in  the  same  way. 

Then  M.  de  Voltaire  himself  wrote  a petition  for  them ; but 
before  they  sent  it  to  the  mediators  (three  had  now  been  ap- 
pointed, one  by  France,  one  by  Berne,  one  by  Geneva),  he  warned 
them  of  their  probable  failure,  in  a prophecy  which  Geneva  long 
remembered.  4 You  are  like  little  flying-fish.  Out  of  the  water, 
you  are  eaten  by  birds  of  prey ; in  it,  by  larger  fish.  You  are 
between  two  equally  powerful  parties : you  will  fall  victims  to 
the  interests  of  one  or  the  other,  or  perhaps  of  both  together.’ 

When  the  petition  was  presented  on  April  28,  1766,  the  un- 
lucky Natives  were  threatened  with  imprisonment  if  they  did  not 
reveal  its  authorship.  They  did.  Notwithstanding,  a few  days 
later,  Auziere,  their  leader,  was  thrown  into  prison,  a result 
Voltaire  had  long  foreseen.  Here  the  affair  ended,  for  a time  at 
least.  Voltaire  summed  up  his  own  position,  with  his  usual 
neatness,  in  writing  to  d’Argental  on  May  6.  ‘ The  Natives  say 

that  I take  the  part  of  the  Bourgeois,  and  the  Bourgeois  that  I 
take  the  part  of  the  Natives.  The  Natives  and  Bourgeois  both 
pretend  I pay  too  much  deference  to  the  Councils,  and  the 
Councils  say  I am  too  friendly  to  both  the  Bourgeois  and  Natives.’ 

The  Councils,  in  point  of  fact,  were  exceedingly  angry  with 
Voltaire,  to  whom  happened  precisely  what  happens  to  the  foolish 
person  who  separates  fighting  dogs.  The  dogs  growl  at  him  and 
begin  fighting  again,  and  their  master  considers  his  interference 
uncommonly  impertinent. 

The  air  of  Geneva  was  sultry  with  storms  in  this  season  of 
1766  ; or  Voltaire  had  upon  him  one  of  those  pugnacious  moods 
in  which  he  had  rent  limb  from  limb  Pompignan,  Freron,  Des- 
fontaines.  To  be  sure,  he  seldom  gave  the  first  blow ; but  the 
moment  he  saw  a chance  of  a fight  he  was  as  agog  to  join  in  it 
at  seventy-two  as  he  had  been  at  twenty-two. 

The  Protestant  minister  called  Jacob  Vernet  was  the  unlucky 
person  who  offended  him  now.  Vernet  was  clever,  and  himself 
a writer.  He  had  been  friendly  with  Voltaire  until  1757,  when  he 


^Et.  72] 


VOLTAIRE  AND  GENEVA 


435 


sharply  criticised  the  4 Essay  on  the  Manners  and  Mind  of 
Nations.’  Then  they  further  fell  out  on  that  vexed  topic,  a 
theatre  in  Geneva ; and  when  d’Alembert’s  famous  article  ap- 
peared in  the  ‘ Encyclopaedia,’  Vernet  broke  off  all  intercourse 
with  Voltaire,  telling  him  the  reason.  Then  Vernet  drew  a por- 
trait of  Voltaire  in  his  ‘ Critical  Letters  of  an  English  Traveller.’ 
The  likeness  was  not  sufficiently  flattering  to  please  the  original, 
who  thereupon  attacked  Vernet  in  a ‘ Dialogue  between  a Priest 
and  a Protestant  Minister.’  Vernet  complained  to  the  Councils 
that  he  had  been  libelled.  And  in  May  1766  Voltaire  wrote 
against  Vernet  one  of  the  most  virulent  of  personal  satires  which 
ever  fell  from  his  pen — ‘ The  Praise  of  Hypocrisy.’  It  lent  his 
hand  cunning  for  that  kind  of  work.  His  next  was  the  famous 
poem  entitled  ‘ The  Civil  War  of  Geneva.’ 

The  excuse  for  this  savage  personal  polemic  was  the  case  of 
one  Covelle,  who  in  1763  had  been  condemned,  for  an  offence 
against  morals,  to  make  confession  of  the  same  to  the  Consistory 
of  Geneva,  to  kneel  to  the  President  of  the  Consistory,  be  repri- 
manded, and  ask  pardon.  He  confessed,  but  more  than  that  he 
declined  to  do. 

The  mode  of  punishment  has  long  been  decided  to  be  an 
unwise  one.  Voltaire,  always  in  advance  of  his  age,  considered 
it  an  unwise  one  then.  He  took  the  part  of  Covelle,  who  person- 
ally was  a wretched  creature,  as  deficient  in  brains  as  in  morals. 
But  he  stood  for  a cause. 

After  having  been  remanded  for  a fortnight  for  consideration, 
he  presented  to  the  Consistory  a paper,  the  substance  of  which 
had  been  supplied  by  Voltaire,  and  which  stated  that  the  eccle- 
siastical laws  did  not  compel  kneeling  to  the  Consistory,  being 
reprimanded  by  it,  or  asking  pardon  from  it. 

Covelle  published  this  statement,  or  rather  Voltaire  did,  and 
between  my  Lord  of  Ferney  and  the  authorities  began  a battle  of 
pamphlets.  They  fill  three  large  volumes,  and  may  still  be  seen 
in  Geneva.  Voltaire  also  wrote  twelve  public  letters  in  the  name 
of  Covelle,  allowed  him  a small  pension,  and  then  made  him  the 
hero  of  ‘ The  Civil  War  of  Geneva.’ 

The  hatred  expressed  in  that  poem  redounded,  as  hatred  is  apt 
to  do,  on  the  hater.  Bitterness  and  anger  are  not  gay.  They 
spoilt,  artistically,  ‘ The  Civil  War  of  Geneva.’ 


F F 2 


436 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1767 


The  poem  is  not,  unluckily  for  Voltaire,  only  a satire  on 
parties,  though  it  is  a satire  on  that  retrograde  and  conservative 
faction  which  he  held  was  ruining  Geneva.  It  is  also  a savage 
satire  against  individuals.  It  attacks  with  a sudden  blind  fury 
(Voltaire  having  hitherto  been  temperate  in  his  dislike  of  him) 
‘ that  monster  of  vanity  and  contradictions,  of  pride  and  of 
meanness,'  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau.  It  tore  Vernet’s  reputation 
to  shreds.  It  descended  to  personal  insult,  and,  that  there  might 
be  no  possible  mistake,  its  victims  were  spoken  of  by  name.  The 
malice  kills  the  wit.  More  indecent  than  the  4 Pucelle,’  ‘ The 
War  of  Geneva  ’ is  much  less  clever  and  amusing.  A picture  of 
a travelling  Englishman,  that  Lord  Abingdon  who  had  introduced 
Wilkes  at  Ferney  and  must  needs  put  his  spoke  into  the  wheel 
of  the  Genevan  party  quarrels,  is  certainly  happy.  The  young 
gentleman  who,  with  his  ‘ phlegmatic  enthusiasm,’  drags  his  dogs 
and  his  boredom  all  over  Europe,  and  expects,  no  matter  where 
he  is,  the  mere  fact  of  his  being  English  to  remove  all  obstacles 
and  alter  all  conditions  which  he  is  pleased  to  dislike,  will  be 
certainly  recognised  as  a type. 

But  as  a whole  ‘ The  Civil  War  of  Geneva  ’ contains  Voltaire’s 
vices  without  his  virtues.  The  poem,  like  all  his  writings, 
certainly  did  something.  In  1769  the  decree  to  which  Covelle 
had  refused  to  submit  was  abolished.  ‘ The  War  of  Geneva,’ 
which  was  brought  out  canto  by  canto,  appeared  complete  in  1768. 

The  strife  of  parties  which  that  poem  celebrated,  and  should 
havo  celebrated  exclusively,  had  not  been  healed  by  the  mediators 
sent  by  France.  Very  well,  says  France — if  persuasion  will  not 
do,  we  will  try  force.  By  the  January  of  1767  French  troops 
were  quartered  along  the  Lake  of  Geneva  with  the  view  of 
bringing  the  aggravating  little  Genevan  republic  to  its  senses  by 
famine  and  blockade,  and  unlucky,  and  comparatively  innocent, 
Ferney  was  almost  unable  to  get  the  necessaries  of  life. 

Voltaire  was  not  the  person  to  starve  in  silence.  The  soldiers 
were  spoiling  the  trees  in  his  park  ; poor  d’Aumard  could  not  get 
his  plasters  ; Adam  was  very  ill  and  could  have  neither  doctor 
nor  medicine  (‘  so  he  is  sure  to  recover  ’) ; and  the  household 
generally  lacked  everything  except  snow,  ‘ and  we  have  enough  of 
that  to  stock  Europe.’  Choiseul  must  be  written  to ! Voltaire 
wrote  to  him  and  pointed  out  that  it  was  not  the  Genevans 


HCt.  73] 


VOLTAIRE  AND  GENEVA 


437 


France  was  punishing,  but  Ferney ; and  on  January  30  Choiseul 
sent  an  order  exempting  Ferney  from  the  general  rule  and 
giving  Voltaire  an  unlimited  passport  for  himself  and  his  house- 
hold. 

It  was  a very  large  one  by  now.  Durey  de  Morsan,  an 
amiable  elderly  ne’er-do-weel,  had  joined  it,  and  lived  there  on 
Voltaire’s  charity,  sometimes  doing  a little  copying  in  return  for 
his  board  and  lodging. 

There  was  also  a protege  of  Richelieu’s,  called  Gallien,  who 
repaid  Voltaire’s  hospitality  with  the  basest  ingratitude ; and  an 
ex- Capuchin  monk,  known  to  Ferney  as  Richard,  who,  when  he 
had  been  generously  entertained  for  two  years,  decamped  with 
money,  manuscripts,  and  jewels  belonging  to  his  host. 

And  then,  besides  its  regular  inmates,  there  poured  through 
the  house  a continual  stream  of  visitors.  In  1766  there  had 
stayed  there  Madame  Saint-  Julien,  a gay,  goodnatured,  and  highly 
connected  little  lady,  whom  Voltaire  called  his  4 butterfly  philo- 
sopher ’ ; and  La  Borde,  playwright  for  himself,  and  first  valet  de 
chambre  for  the  King. 

Here,  too,  also  in  1766,  had  come  James  Boswell,  Esquire,  of 
Auchinleck,  for  whose  benefit  M.  de  Voltaire  is  pleased  to  assume 
the  manner  and  style  of  Mr.  Boswell’s  great  patron,  and  to  speak 
of  that  patron  as  ‘ a superstitious  dog.’ 

Voltaire  would  hardly  have  been  his  vain  old  French  self  if  he 
had  not  modified  his  opinion  of  the  great  Doctor  when  Boswell 
told  him  that  Johnson  had  said  that  Frederick  the  Great  wrote 
as  Voltaire’s  footboy,  who  had  acted  as  his  amanuensis,  might  do. 

To  be  sure,  when  Boswell  got  home  and  asked  the  Doctor  if 
he  thought  Rousseau  as  bad  a man  as  Voltaire,  that  staunch  old 
bigot  had  replied,  1 Why,  Sir,  it  is  difficult  to  settle  the  proportion 
of  iniquity  between  them.’ 

But  Voltaire  did  not  know  of  that  answer. 

Also  in  1766,  Gretry  the  musician,  then  only  five-and- twenty, 
had  often  come  over  from  Geneva,  where  he  was  staying,  to 
visit  Voltaire.  Madame  Cramer  had  first  introduced  him.  The 
conversation  often  turned  on  comic  opera,  which  Voltaire  had 
once  hated,  but  which,  as  expounded  by  Gretry,  he  was  soon  to  love 
and  at  seventy-four  to  write  gaily  himself. 

When  Gretry  spoke  of  his  host’s  prodigious  reputation,  he 


438  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1767 

records  that  Voltaire  characteristically  replied  that  he  would  give 
a hundred  years  of  immortality  for  a good  digestion. 

Chabanon,  friend  of  d’Alembert,  musician,  poet,  dramatist, 
had  also  paid  a first  visit  here  in  1766.  He  came  back  again  on 
May  1,  1767,  and  stayed  seven  months.  He  has  left  behind  him 
a good  account  of  that  visit.  He  evidently  guessed — what  not  all 
Voltaire’s  friends  did  guess — that  one  day  the  world  would  be 
interested  in  them  only  as  having  known  Voltaire,  and  would  be 
grateful  to  them  for  writing  as  little  about  themselves,  and  as 
much  about  their  host,  as  possible. 

While  Chabanon  was  at  Ferney,  the  leisure  Voltaire’s 
‘ devouring  ardour  ’ for  study  allowed  him  was  spent,  of  course, 
in  play-acting.  He  had  just  written  a new  play,  4 The  Scythians,’ 
and  loved  it  as  he  always  loved  his  latest  born.  He  was  not  a 
little  disgusted  when  Ferney  would  have  none  of  it,  and  demanded 
an  old  favourite,  ‘ Adelaide  du  Guesclin,’  instead. 

‘ I cannot  think  what  they  see  in  that  “ Adelaide,”  ’ says  its 
author  discontentedly  to  Madame  Denis. 

Ferney  and  Chabanon  only  ratified  the  judgment  of  Paris  in 
disliking  ‘The  Scythians.’  Played  there  on  March  26  of  this 
same  1767,  the  rude  parterre  had  ‘ no  respect  for  the  old  age 
which  had  written  it,’  and  made  such  a noise  that  the  first 
performances  were  ‘ regular  battles.’  There  were  only  four 
in  all. 

The  French  officers  of  the  blockading  troops  came  en  masse 
to  Ferney  in  this  spring  to  witness  the  theatricals.  Colonel 
Chabrillant,  the  colonel  of  Conti’s  regiment,  stayed  for  a long 
time  as  a guest  at  the  chateau  ; and  if  he  did,  after  the  visit,  forget 
to  write  a single  word  of  thanks  to  his  host  or  Mama  Denis,  why, 
that  was  a sort  of  ingratitude  to  which  Voltaire  should  have  been 
accustomed. 

Three  companies  of  the  same  regiment  were  quartered  in  the 
village  of  Ferney,  and  some  of  the  grenadiers  often  came  as 
audience  to  the  performances,  and  at  least  once  as  actors.  As  a 
reward  for  their  services  Voltaire  gave  them  supper  and  offered 
them  money. 

‘ We  will  not  take  anything,’  they  said.  ‘ We  have  seen  M.  de 
Voltaire.  That  is  our  payment.’ 

The  celebrity  was  as  delighted  as  a boy.  My  ‘ brave 


Mt.  73] 


VOLTAIEE  AND  GENEVA 


439 


grenadiers  ! ’ he  cried,  and  invited  them  all,  whenever  they  wanted 
a meal  or  well-paid  work,  to  come  to  Ferney. 

When  his  guests  were  tired  of  acting  themselves,  they  could, 
and  did,  now  go  to  Geneva  and  see  other  people  act.  Through 
the  influence  of  Voltaire  upon  M.  de  Beauteville,  that  French 
envoy  had  so  far  worked  upon  the  prim  Councils  of  Geneva  that 
they  had  allowed  a theatre  to  be  opened  in  their  Puritan  town  in 
April  1766.  1 Olympie  ’ was  played  there,  and  the  loveliest  comic 

operas.  Voltaire  had  the  whole  troupe  to  Ferney,  where  they 
acted  four  for  his  benefit.  The  Geneva  theatre  had  only  a short 
life.  It  was  burnt  in  February  1768.  The  townspeople  hated  it 
so,  that  when  they  saw  it  in  flames  they  made  no  attempt  to 
save  it. 

In  the  light  of  subsequent  events,  it  seems  almost  certain  that 
Voltaire  received  many  of  his  visitors  and  gave  many  of  his  enter- 
tainments to  keep  Madame  Denis  in  a good  temper,  and  reconcile 
her  to  the  country  which  she  hated  ; while  other  festivities  he 
arranged  for  the  benefit  of  the  lighthearted  young  people  he 
always  liked  to  have  about  him. 

When  there  was  a supper  and  a dance  after  theatricals  he 
himself  appeared  for  a moment  only,  and  then  retired  to  his  room, 
which  adjoined  that  where,  not  the  guests,  but  the  servants  were 
dancing,  and  where  he  tranquilly  worked  or  slept  to  the  sound  of 
the  music.  Sometimes  he  did  not  even  appear  to  do  the  honours 
of  the  house  at  all ; and  declared  of  himself  that  he  would  have 
been  dead  in  four  days  if  he  had  not  well  known  how  to  live 
quietly  in  the  midst  of  uproar,  and  alone  in  a mob. 

He  had  the  usual  quarrel  on  hand  to  keep  him  busy.  That 
conceited  La  Beaumelle,  who  had  been  a thorn  in  his  flesh  in 
Prussia,  assailed  him  in  the  summer  of  1767  with  no  fewer  than 
ninety-four  abusive  anonymous  letters.  Voltaire  put  the  matter 
into  the  hands  of  the  police.  But  in  1770  La  Beaumelle,  who 
had  further  complicated  the  situation  by  marrying  the  sister  of 
young  Lavaysse,  the  Calas’  unfortunate  friend,  began  an  objec- 
tionable commentary  on  Voltaire’s  works,  and  would  have  finished 
it  but  that  he  (La  Beaumelle)  died  in  1778. 

That  Voltaire  spent  energy  and  time  in  trying  to  inspire,  and 
that  he  knew  no  greater  delight  than  when  he  did  inspire,  his 
visitors  with  his  own  passion  for  hard  work  in  place  of  idle 


440  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1767 

pleasure,  is  on  the  testimony  of  Chabanon  and  of  a fellow-visitor 
of  Chabanon’s,  the  famous  La  Harpe. 

La  Harpe  from  the  first  came  to  Ferney  to  be  a brilliant  pupil 
to  this  great  past  master  of  so  many  arts ; to  learn  from  the 
author  of  4 Zaire  ’ and  of  4 Alzire,’  of  4 Mahomet  ’ and  of  4 Merope,’ 
of  4 The  Princess  of  Navarre,’  4 The  Prodigal  Son,’  4 Brutus,’  and 
i The  Scotch  Girl,’  how  to  write  every  kind  of  play  that  ever  play- 
wright has  written.  It  has  been  mentioned  that  La  Harpe  had 
been  at  Ferney  in  1765 — part  of  the  time  with  that  noblest 
exponent  of  the  drama,  Clairon.  He  was  here  also  in  1766  with 
Chabanon.  And  now,  in  the  beginning  of  1767,  he  came  once 
again — this  time  with  his  young  wife,  and  for  a visit  which  lasted 
more  than  a year. 

La  Harpe  was  a clever,  arrogant,  and  very  self-satisfied  young 
man  of  about  eight-and-twenty.  His  tragedy,  ‘Warwick,’  pro- 
duced in  1768,  made  him  famous  in  his  own  age.  In  this,  he  is 
only  celebrated  as  the  first  writer  in  France  who  4 made  criticism 
eloquent.’  He  had  led  a disreputable  youth,  and  had  just 
married  his  landlady’s  daughter  as  a reparation  for  wrong  done 
to  her.  But  in  that  age  almost  everybody  was  disreputable ; and 
if  virtue  had  been  a sine  qua  non  in  society,  there  would  have 
been  no  society  at  all. 

Voltaire  took  this  promising  youth  to  his  warm  and  sanguine 
old  heart  at  once.  He  was  poor ! He  was  clever ! He  could 
act ! What  more  did  one  want  ? With  Voltaire’s  help  he  had 
gained  a prize  at  the  Academy.  And  with  further  help  he  should 
do  greater  things  than  that.  Nothing  is  pleasanter  in  Voltaire’s 
character  as  an  old  man  than  the  enthusiastic  interest  and  delight 
he  took  in  his  young  literary  proteges.  He  worked  with  them, 
corrected  them,  praised  them,  went  into  raptures  over  their  talents 
to  his  friends,  financed  them,  fathered  them,  housed  them,  and  in 
the  desire  for  their  fame  quite  forgot  his  own. 

The  memorable  La  Harpe  visit  of  1767  opened  under  the 
rosiest  aspects.  The  little  bride  had  the  youth  in  which  Voltaire 
delighted,  and  she  turned  out  to  be  4 a comedian  without  knowing 
it.’  If  4 The  Scythians  ’ had  been  hissed  in  Paris,  Madame  de  la 
Harpe  reciting  Act  II.  made  Ferney  sob.  La  Harpe,  too,  4 de- 
claimed verses  as  well  as  he  wrote  them,’  and  was  4 the  best  actor 
in  France.’ 


Mt.  73] 


VOLTAIRE  AND  LA  HARPE 


441 


So  there  were  theatricals  galore. 

If  thorns  pricked  on  the  rose  stems  and  there  were  clouds  in 
the  bluest  of  skies,  it  was  not  Voltaire  who  spoke  of  them. 

It  is  Chabanon,  the  fellow-guest,  who  sketches  La  Harpe  as 
overbearing,  impatient  of  correction,  uncommonly  quarrelsome, 
and  quite  forgetful  of  the  fact  that  his  host’s  position  and 
seniority  of  nearly  fifty  years  demanded  some  sort  of  respect. 

Old  Voltaire  was  goodnatured  enough  to  criticise  the  young 
man’s  plays  for  him,  and  La  Harpe  received  the  criticisms  with 
the  sulkiness  of  offended  dignity.  Voltaire  was  not  patient  by 
nature,  heaven  knows.  But  he  kept  his  coolness  and  his  temper 
with  this  irritating  young  man  to  a degree  quite  extraordinary. 
It  was  always  4 the  little  La  Harpe,’  or  4 my  dear  child,’  or  4 Ah  ! 
the  little  one  is  angry ! ’ with  a goodnatured  laugh. 

When  one  day  the  conceited  visitor  went  so  far  as  to  rewrite 
some  verses  in  his  part  in  Voltaire’s  4 Adelaide  ’ — 4 which  seemed 
to  me  feeble  ’ — 4 Let  us  hear  them,  my  son,’  says  Voltaire.  And 
when  he  had  heard  them,  as  improved  by  La  Harpe — 

4 Good,’  he  said.  4 Yes,  that  is  better.  Go  on  making  such 
changes.  I shall  only  gain  by  them.’ 

On  another  occasion,  La  Harpe,  at  a dinner  party  of  twenty 
persons,  recited  an  ode  by  one  old  foe  of  Voltaire’s,  Pompignan, 
on  the  death  of  another,  J.  B.  Rousseau,  without  stating  the 
name  of  the  author. 

4 Very  good,’  says  Voltaire.  4 Who  wrote  it  ? ’ 

The  audacious  La  Harpe  makes  him  guess.  And  at  last 
tells  him. 

4 Pompignan.’ 

That  name,  as  La  Harpe  himself  said,  was  a coup  de  theatre 
indeed.  There  was  a silence.  4 Repeat  the  lines  again,’  says 
Voltaire.  As  La  Harpe  repeats  them,  the  Patriarch  listens  with 
fixed  attention.  4 There  is  no  more  to  be  said.  It  is  a beautiful 
stanza.’ 

Was  this  the  same  man  whom  the  mere  suggestion  that 
d’Arnaud’s  sun  was  rising  and  his  setting,  had  spurred  to  the 
folly  of  the  Prussian  visit  ? Was  this  the  man  so  thin-skinned 
that  every  gnat-bite  of  a criticism  made  him  raw  and  mad  ? The 
truth  seems  to  be  that  Voltaire  had  a very  weak  spot  in  his  heart 
for  La  Harpe,  and  loved  him  better  than  his  own  glory. 


442 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1768 


Not  many  years  ago,  in  a grocer’s  shop  in  Paris,  was  discovered 
an  autograph  letter  of  Voltaire’s  in  which  he  begged  the  Con- 
troller-General for  a pension  for  his  protege. 

‘ It  seems  to  me  that,  M.  de  la  Harpe  having  no  pension, 
mine  (from  the  King)  is  too  large  by  half,  and  that  it  should  be 
divided  between  us.’ 

If  this  could  be  arranged — ‘ La  Harpe,  and  everyone  else,  can 
easily  be  made  to  think  that  this  pension  is  a just  recompense 
for  the  services  he  has  rendered  to  literature.’ 

The  request  was  not  granted.  La  Harpe  never  even  knew 
that  it  had  been  made.  But  its  singular  generosity  and  delicacy 
are  not  altered  by  those  facts.  Well  might  Voltaire’s  bitterest 
enemy,  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau,  write  of  him : ‘ I know  no  man 
on  earth  whose  impulses  have  been  more  beautiful.’ 

But  his  treatment  of  La  Harpe  was  something  better  even 
than  a noble  impulse. 

In  the  beginning  of  1768,  after  the  young  couple  had  been 
guests  in  his  house  for  more  than  a year,  and  after  one  of  them 
at  least  had  received  full  measure,  pressed  down  and  running 
over,  of  help,  forbearance,  and  kindness,  Voltaire  discovered  that 
valuable  manuscripts  had  been  stolen  from  him.  Among  others 
were  those  secret  Memoirs  written  in  1759,  which  expressed  the 
feelings  of  an  angry,  younger  Voltaire,  but  not  of  a wiser  and 
older  one.  To  Paris  had  been  sent  not  only  copies  of  ‘ The  Civil 
War  of  Geneva,’  but  anecdotes  for  his  Histories  which  Voltaire 
was  keeping  until  the  death  of  the  persons  concerned  left  him  at 
liberty  to  publish  them. 

There  was  a loud  domestic  explosion  at  Ferney.  The  strongest 
and  gravest  suspicion  fell  upon  La  Harpe.  He  vehemently  denied 
everything,  and  accused  a certain  Antoine,  a sculptor,  of  the 
crime.  Antoins  simply  said  La  Harpe  was  a liar. 

Madame  Denis,  who  herself  was  suspected  of  a foolish  elderly 
tendresse  for  La  Harpe  and  of  complicity  in  the  affair  with  him, 
took  his  side,  with,  one  may  safely  assume,  a torrent  of  eloquence. 
But  eloquence,  not  proof,  was  all  either  she  or  La  Harpe  had  to 
offer.  From  his  room  La  Harpe,  ‘ putting  arrogance  in  the  place 
of  repentance,’  wrote  his  generous  old  host  many  impertinent 
little  notes.  He  might  have  spared  him. 

Voltaire  had  often  had  manuscripts  stolen  from  him  before. 


Mt.  74] 


VOLTAIRE  AND  LA  HARPE 


443 


and  always  alas ! by  his  own  familiar  friends  whom  he  trusted, 
But  this  time  he  felt  the  treachery  with  peculiar  bitterness.  He 
was  not  passionate  and  furious  as  he  generally  was.  His  attitude 
was  that  of  knowing  La  Harpe  to  be  guilty  and  longing  to  find 
him  innocent.  He  made  as  little  of  it  as  he  could.  4 This  little 
roguery  of  La  Harpe’s  is  not  serious/  he  wrote.  ‘ But  it  is 
certain  and  proven/  In  the  November  of  1767  La  Harpe  had 
been  in  Paris  for  a time,  when  4 he  gave  the  third  canto  of  44  The 
Civil  War  of  Geneva  ” to  three  persons  of  my  acquaintance/ 

4 1 did  not  reproach  him/  Voltaire  wrote  sadly  to  Hennin, 4 but 
his  own  conscience  did.  He  never  alluded  to  the  affair  and  looked 
me  straight  in  the  face,  or  spoke  of  it  without  turning  pale  with 
a palior  not  that  of  innocence/  Still,  if  I can  help  him  in  the 
future  as  I have  done  in  the  past,  I shall  do  so  ; 4 only,  if  Madame 
Denis  brings  him  back  to  Ferney  I must  lock  up  my  papers/ 
4 His  imprudence  has  had  very  disagreeable  consequences  for  me, 
but  I pardon  him  with  all  my  heart ; he  has  not  sinned  from 
malice/ 

Only  to  his  intimate  friends  did  he  admit  La  Harpe  had 
sinned  at  all.  The  sinner  was  dear  to  him.  He  must  lie,  if  need 
be,  to  prove  his  innocence  to  the  world. 

Naturally,  the  La  Harpes  had  to  go  away.  And  since  they 
must  go,  would  it  not  be  better  for  their  accomplice,  Denis,  to  go 
too  ? It  was  not  her  first  offence.  She  had  helped  Ximenes  to 
steal  manuscripts  in  1754.  Then,  too,  she  was  bored  to  death 
with  Ferney  ; and  her  4 natural  aversion  to  a country  life/  wrote 
poor  Voltaire  4 in  confidence  ’ to  her  sister,  had  had  very  ill  effects 
upon  her  temper.  Not  all  the  fetes  and  the  visitors  could  make 
up  to  her  for  Paris.  Voltaire  said  that  he  had  been  the  innkeeper 
of  Europe  for  fourteen  years  and  was  tired  of  the  profession. 
4 This  tumult  does  not  suit  my  seventy-four  years  or  my  feeble- 
ness/ 4 Madame  Denis  has  need  of  Paris/  Here  was  one 
excuse  for  getting  rid  of  her.  And  if  more  were  wanted,  there 
was  her  health  which  required  the  air  of  the  capital  and  fashion- 
able doctors  ; there  were  business  affairs  there  which  she  might 
see  to  for  her  uncle ; and  a necessity  of  economising  at  Ferney 
brought  about  by  her  extravagance,  and  ‘muddle,  which/  said 
Grimm,  4 is  carried  by  Mama  Denis  to  a degree  of  perfection 
difficult  to  imagine/ 


444 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1768 


To  his  friends  Voltaire  gave  her  health  and  the  business  to  be 
looked  after  in  Paris  as  reasons  for  her  visit.  They  were  that 
lesser  part  of  the  truth  which  is  useful  to  conceal  the  greater.  If 
he  was  loyal  to  La  Harpe,  so  he  was  to  Madame  Denis.  Of  her 
share  in  the  theft  of  the  manuscripts  he  uttered  not  a word. 

He  gave  her  twenty  thousand  francs  to  spend  in  Paris,  over 
and  above  the  yearly  income  which  he  had  settled  on  her. 

Before  March  1,  1768,  the  two  La  Harpes,  Madame  Denis, 
Marie  Dupuits,  and  her  husband,  who  had  fallen  under  the  ban 
of  suspicion  too,  and  declined  to  utter  a word  or  give  an  iota  of 
evidence  on  either  side,  had  all  started  for  the  capital. 

Voltaire  dismissed  the  servants — except  a couple  of  lacqueys 
and  a valet.  He  sold  his  horses.  ‘ An  old  invalid  recluse  * had 
no  need  of  them.  Seven  visitors  who  were  staying  in  the  house 
at  the  time,  seeing  their  host's  evident  need  of  solitude,  tactfully 
departed.  There  only  remained  Father  Adam,  faithful  Wagniere, 
a colleague  of  Wagniere’s  called  Bigex — a Savoyard,  who  had 
formerly  been  trusted  servant  and  copyist  in  the  service  of 
Grimm — and  two  of  the  usual  ne'er-do-weels,  de  Morsan  and  an 
ex-American  officer  called  Rieu.  Both  these  persons  seem  to 
have  suppressed  themselves  with  great  success  when  they  were 
not  wanted,  and  to  have  been  regarded  by  their  benefactor  as 
part  of  the  household  effects.  He  always  spoke  of  himself  as 
being  entirely  alone.  Ferney  was  cleaned  and  put  in  order,  and 
the  stream  of  visitors  ceased  to  flow. 

It  was  certainly  not  because  Voltaire  was  idle,  but  because  his 
seventy-four  years  did  not  prevent  him  still  being  what  the  French 
call  malin,  that  this  Easter  he  decided  to  do  what  he  had  done 
at  Colmar : play  once  more  that  ‘ deplorable  comedy,’  faire  ses 
Paques. 

A priest  was  dining  with  him  one  night  at  Ferney.  ‘ Father 

D ,'  says  Voltaire,  ‘I  wish,  for  example’s  sak e,  faire  mes 

Paques  on  Easter  Day.  I suppose  you  will  give  me  absolution  ? ’ 

‘Willingly,’  says  the  priest.  ‘I  give  it  you.’  No  more  was 
said. 

On  Easter  Day  1768,  Voltaire,  accompanied  by  Wagniere  and 
two  gamekeepers,  went  solemnly  to  church,  preceded  by  a servant 
carrying  ‘a  superb  Blessed  Loaf’  which  the  Lord  of  Ferney  was 
in  the  habit  of  presenting  every  Easter  Sunday.  After  the  dis- 


Mt.  74] 


VOLTAIRE  AND  LA  HARPE 


445 


tribution  of  this  bread  Voltaire  mounted  the  pulpit  and  turned 
round  and  preached  a little  sermon.  Protestant  Wagniere  had 
warned  him  against  doing  this.  He  felt  sure  it  was  illegal.  But 
his  master’s  mood  was  a wicked  one ; and,  moreover,  several 
thefts  had  been  committed  of  late  in  his  parish  while  all  the 
people  were  at  church,  which  gave  him  a text.  His  remonstrances 
were  ‘vigorous,  pathetic,  and  eloquent,’  and  he  warmly  exhorted 
the  people  to  the  practice  of  virtue.  The  unhappy  cure,  not 
knowing  what  to  do,  hurried  to  the  altar  and  proceeded  with  the 
mass.  Voltaire  spoke  a few  words  in  his  praise,  and  then  got 
down  from  the  pulpit  and  resumed  his  own  seat. 

The  story  got  noised  abroad.  Good  Marie  Leczinska  mistook 
it  for  a conversion.  The  philosophers  for  once  were  at  one  with 
the  orthodox,  and  condemned  the  deed.  And  so  of  course  did 
Biort,  Bishop  of  Annecy,  who  was  also  Prince  and  Bishop  of 
Geneva,  and  of  whose  diocese  Ferney  was  part. 

In  that  wicked  world  of  the  eighteenth  century  there  were  few 
good  bishops.  But  the  Prelate  of  Annecy  was  one  of  them.  He 
was  also  of  strong  character  and  of  sound  judgment  and  reason, 
with  a fine  capacity  for  irony. 

On  April  11,  1768,  he  wrote  Voltaire  a very  excellent  letter. 
He  could  not  take,  he  said,  as  hypocrisy  a deed  which,  if  hypo- 
critical, would  tarnish  a great  man’s  glory  and  make  him  de- 
spicable in  the  eyes  of  all  thoughtful  persons.  ‘I  hope  your 
future  life  will  give  proof  of  the  integrity  and  sincerity  of  your 
act  ’ ; and  then,  in  language  of  great  dignity  and  even  beauty,  he 
attempted  to  recall  the  sinner  to  a sense  of  sin,  and  reminded 
him  of  that  hour  which  could  not  now  be  far  distant,  when  the 
faith  would  be  his  only  hope,  and  his  fame  and  glory  the  shadows 
of  a dream. 

Voltaire  replied  on  April  15,  purposely  misunderstanding  the 
Bishop’s  letter  and  taking  his  remarks  as  compliments.  He  felt 
the  act  needed  excuse.  To  d’Alembert,  who  was  as  free-thinking 
as  any  man  in  Paris,  he  wrote  apologetically,  that,  finding  him- 
self between  two  fourteenth-century  bishops,  he  was  obliged  to 
‘ howl  with  the  wolves.’  He  abused  Biort  as  a fanatic  and  an 
imbecile.  But  he  knew  very  well  that  he  was  neither.  He  was 
not  so  imbecile,  at  least,  that  he  put  any  faith  in  a devout  and 
serious  letter  M.  de  Voltaire  was  pleased  to  write  to  him  on 


446  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1768 

April  29,  and  replied  on  May  2 in  terms  which  showed  very  clearly 
that  he  knew  his  Voltaire — to  the  soul. 

He  had  already  issued  a mandate  to  the  clergy  of  his  diocese 
forbidding  them  to  give  the  Sacrament  to  this  profane  person. 
He  now  sent  the  whole  correspondence  to  the  King,  and,  as  the 
only  punishment  adequate  to  the  offence,  he  begged  for  a lettre 
de  cachet  for  M.  de  Voltaire.  Saint-Florentin  was  bidden  to 
write  the  culprit  a formal  epistle,  saying  that  the  King  strongly 
condemned  ‘ this  enterprise  ’ on  the  part  of  his  ex-Gentleman-in- 
Ordinary.  But  there  was  no  lettre  de  cachet.  The  incident  had 
amused  the  Court.  That  covered  a multitude  of  sins. 

For  the  time  the  affair  was  over.  But  alas ! only  for  the 
time. 

Though  there  were  few  visitors  in  Madame  Denis’s  absence, 
there  were  some.  In  the  August  of  this  1768  two  very  lively 
young  men,  both  about  twenty  years  old,  came  over  from  Geneva 
to  call  upon  the  Patriarch  of  Ferney.  One  of  them,  named  Price, 
more  than  forty  years  after,  told  a friend  the  little  he  recollected 
of  the  occasion.  His  companion  was  then  known  as  the  son  of 
Lord  Holland,  but  later  and  now  as  Charles  James  Fox.  He  had 
first  visited  Ferney  in  1764  when  he  was  sixteen. 

Voltaire  was  delighted  to  see  his  visitors,  but,  as  usual,  de- 
clared that  they  had  only  come  to  bury  him ; and  though  he 
walked  about  the  garden  and  drank  chocolate  with  them,  did  not 
invite  them  to  dinner. 

The  only  part  of  their  conversation  Price  recollected  after 
that  interval  of  forty  years  was  that  the  host  gave  them  the  names 
of  such  of  his  works  as  might  open  their  minds  and  ‘ free  them 
from  religious  prejudice,’  adding,  ‘Here  are  the  books  with  which 
to  fortify  yourselves.’ 

Charles  paid  other  visits  to  Ferney,  and  Voltaire  soon  learnt 
to  love  him,  as  all  the  world  loved  that  generous  and  brilliant 
youth.  ‘ Yr  son  is  an  English  lad  and  j an  old  Frenchman,’  the 
Patriarch  wrote  to  Lord  Holland  after  Charles’s  next  visit.  ‘ He 
is  healthy  and  j sick.  Yet  j love  him  with  all  my  heart,  not  only 
for  his  father  but  himself.’  Voltaire  gave  the  young  man  dinner 
this  time,  in  his  ‘ little  caban  ’ ; and  Charles  became  a persona 
grata  at  Ferney,  as  in  all  the  world. 

Another  Englishman  with  whom  Voltaire  was  brought  into 


Mt.  74] 


VOLTAIRE  AND  LA  HARPE 


447 


relation  in  the  summer  of  1768  was  Horace  Walpole.  Voltaire 
had  seen  Horace’s  ‘Historic  Doubts  on  Richard  III.,’  and 
characteristically  wrote  that  it  was  fifty  years  since  he  took  a vow 
to  doubt,  and  reminded  Horace  that  he  had  known  his  father  and 
uncle  in  England.  Horace  sent  a copy  of  his  book,  and  the 
correspondence  drifted  on  to  that  favourite  topic  of  contention 
between  literary  Englishmen  and  Voltaire — Shakespeare.  Vol- 
taire, who  wrote  in  his  own  language — what  need  to  write  in 
English  to  ‘ the  best  Frenchman  ever  born  on  English  soil  ’ ? — 
pointed  out  with  just  pride  in  reply  that  he  had  been  the  first 
to  make  Shakespeare,  Locke,  and  Newton  known  to  the  French, 
and  that,  in  spite  of  the  persecutions  of  a clique  of  fanatics. 
‘ I have  been  your  apostle  and  your  martyr  : truly  English  people 
have  no  reason  to  complain  of  me.’ 

If  some  new  friends  came  into  Voltaire’s  life  in  this  solitary 
1768,  more  old  ones  went  out  of  it. 

On  June  24  of  this  year  died  Marie  Leczinska.  Friend? 
Well,  once.  There  was  that  pension  sur  sa  cassette , and  ‘my 
poor  Voltaire.’ 

In  the  autumn  died  Olivet — a friend  indeed — the  best  of 
Latinists,  the  kindly  schoolmaster  at  Louis-le-Grand. 

In  December,  that  silent  staunch  laborious  worker  for  the 
philosophic  faith,  Damilaville,  met  death  with  the  resolute  courage 
with  which  he  had  faced  life,  and  left  the  world  poorer  for  one  of 
those  rare  people  who  say  nothing  and  do  much. 

Voltaire  mourned  him  as  a public  as  well  as  a personal  loss. 
He  mourned  him  characteristically — that  such  a man  should  die 
while  Frerons  waxed  fat ! But  since  they  did,  the  less  time  to 
sit  idle  and  weeping. 

Up  then,  and  at  them  with  those  little  deadly  arrows  of 
which  the  Voltairian  quiver  was  always  full — the  arrows  called 
Pamphlets. 


448 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1769 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE  COLONY  OF  WATCHMAKERS  AND  WEAVERS 

‘What  harm  can  a book  do  that  costs  a hundred  crowns?’ 
Voltaire  had  written  to  Damilaville  on  April  5,  1765.  ‘ Twenty 

volumes  folio  will  never  make  a revolution ; it  is  the  little  pocket 
pamphlets  of  thirty  sous  that  are  to  be  feared.’ 

He  had  acted  on  that  principle  all  his  life.  But  he  had  never 
acted  upon  it  so  much  as  in  his  hand-to-hand  battle  with  Vinfame . 
He  never  acted  upon  it  so  often  as  in  his  eighteen  months’ 
solitude  at  Ferney  in  1768-69. 

For  many  years,  from  that  ‘ manufactory  ’ of  his,  as  Grimm 
called  it,  he  poured  forth  a ceaseless  stream  of  dialogues,  epistles, 
discourses,  reflections,  novelettes,  commentaries,  burlesques,  re- 
views. Hardly  any  of  them  were  more  than  a few  pages  in 
length.  But  each  dealt  with  some  subject  near  to  his  wide  heart ; 
cried  aloud  for  some  reform  which  had  not  been  made,  and  must 
be  made ; pointed  out  with  mocking  finger  some  scandal  in 
Church  or  State ; satirised  with  killing  irony  some  gross  abuse 
of  power  ; turned  on  some  miscarriage  of  civil  justice  the  search- 
light of  truth ; laughed  lightly,  in  dialogue,  at  the  education  of 
women  by  nuns  in  convents  to  fit  them  to  be  wives  and  mothers 
in  the  world ; drew  up  damning  statistics  of  the  9,468,800 
victims  ‘ hanged,  drowned,  broken  on  the  wheel,  or  burnt,  for  the 
love  of  God  ’ and  their  religion  from  the  time  of  Constantine  to 
Louis  XIV. ; pleaded  vivaciously  against  the  eighty-two  annual 
holidays  set  apart  by  the  Church  on  which  it  was  criminal  to 
work  but  not  to  be  drunken  and  mischievous ; enumerated  the 
‘ Horrible  Dangers  of  Reading,’  of  knowing,  of  thinking ; and 
lashed  with  the  prettiest  of  stinging  little  whips  a corrupt 
ministry,  a wicked  priesthood,  and  Vinfame , Vinfame . 

1 11  fait  le  tout  en  badinant.1  Serious?  Why,  no.  ‘Our 


JEt.  76]  WATCHMAKERS  AND  WEAVERS 


449 


French  people  want  to  learn  without  studying  * ; and  they  shall. 
Instruct ! Instruct ! but  as  one  instructs  a child  with  a lesson  in 
the  form  of  a story,  or  the  simplest  little  sermon  with  a sugar- 
plum of  a joke  at  the  end.  This  was  such  a laughing  philosopher 
that  many  persons  have  doubted  if  he  really  could  have  been  a 
philosopher  at  all.  He  turned  so  many  somersaults,  as  friend 
Frederick  put  it  plaintively.  But  the  somersaults  gained  him 
an  audience,  and  once  gained  he  knew  very  well  how  to  keep  and 
teach  it.  It  was  one  of  his  own  sayings  that  ridicule  does  for 
everything  and  is  the  strongest  of  arms.  He  proved  the  truth 
of  that  assertion  himself — in  the  pamphlets  by  which  he  held 
the  attention  and  commanded  the  intellect  of  the  eighteenth 
century. 

Read  them  now — they  are  the  most  amusing  reading  in  the 
world — and  beneath  the  sparkling  mockery,  see  the  burning 
meaning. 

They  are  much  more,  considered  as  works  of  art  alone,  than 
brilliant  burlesques.  Each  of  them  is  endowed  with  Voltaire’s 
‘ unquenchable  life,’  and  ‘ stamped  with  the  express  image  ’ of  his 
whole  personality.  Gay,  crisp,  and  clear,  expressing  his  ideas  in 
the  fewest  and  easiest  words  and  in  the  most  vivacious  and  grace- 
ful of  all  literary  styles,  they  conveyed  to  his  generation  ‘the 
consciousness  at  once  of  the  power  and  the  rights  of  the  human 
intelligence.’ 

Through  these  pamphlets  ‘ the  revolution  works  in  all  minds. 
Light  comes  by  a thousand  holes  it  is  impossible  to  stop  up.’ 

‘ Reason  penetrates  into  the  merchants’  shops  as  into  the  nobles’ 
palaces.’ 

What  better  proof  could  Voltaire  himself  have  wanted  of  the 
growth  of  that  liberty  and  tolerance  which  he  loved,  and  strove 
to  make  all  men  love  and  have,  than  the  fact  that  the  govern- 
ment, autocratic  and  all-powerful  as  it  was,  could  not  prevent 
those  pamphlets  selling  and  working  in  their  midst  ? 

‘ Opinion  rules  the  world,’  said  Voltaire  himself.  At  last  he 
had  made  his  opinion,  Public  Opinion.  ‘ From  1762  to  the  end 
of  Voltaire’s  life  it  was  on  the  side  of  the  philosophers.’ 

True,  the  authorities  still  burnt  his  works.  In  1768  he  had 
written  ‘ The  Man  with  Forty  Crowns,’  a burlesque  story  ‘ on 
the  financial  chaos  which  fifteen  years  later  brought  France  to 


450 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1769 


bankruptcy.’  That  must  be  burnt  of  course.  France  hated 
unfavourable  prophecies.  It  was  burnt.  But  by  now  Voltaire’s 
pamphlets  were  like  Shadrach,  Meshech,  and  Abednego.  Flames 
could  not  hurt  them.  And  when  they  came  out  of  the  fiery 
furnace  it  was  only  with  an  added  lustre  and  glory. 

Well  for  Voltaire  if  those  pamphlets  could  have  engrossed  all 
his  solitude.  In  Beuchot’s  edition  of  his  writings  they  fill  ten 
large  volumes.  Here  surely  was  occupation  enough  for  a life- 
time ! But  Voltaire  had  time  for  everything,  and  was  for  ever 
the  spoilt  boy  who  loved  his  own  way. 

The  Easter  of  1769  reminded  him  of  last  Easter  and  the  fact 
that  the  Bishop  of  Annecy  had  forbidden  his  priesthood  to  allow 
him  to  confess  or  communicate.  Very  well  then  ! I will  do 
both. 

His  feeble  body  had  been  ill  and  ailing  for  a year — a condition 
of  things  which  is  apt  to  make  the  mind  unreasonable.  There 
was  a recent  case  of  a man  called  Boindin,  who,  dying  unfortified 
by  the  Sacraments,  had  been  refused  Christian  burial.  There 
was  always  the  case  of  Adrienne  Lecouvreur — ‘ thrown  into  the 
kennel  like  a dead  dog.’ 

Voltaire  declared,  to  persons  whom  he  could  have  no  object 
in  deceiving,  that  he  had  lately  had  1 twelve  accesses  of  fever.’ 
He  was  seventy-five  years  old.  And  death  always  was  and  had 
been  a far  more  present  reality  to  him  than  to  most  people. 

These  things  taken  together  form,  not  at  all  a valid  excuse, 
but  some  sort  of  honest  excuse  for  an  act  that  needs  a great  deal 
of  excusing. 

Voltaire  was  in  bed  one  day  in  the  March  of  1769,  dictating 
to  Wagniere,  when  he  saw  from  his  window  Gros,  the  Ferney 
cure,  and  a Capuchin  monk  who  had  come  to  help  him  with  the 
Easter  confessions,  walking  in  the  garden.  Voltaire  sent  for  the 
Capuchin  and  told  him  that  he  was  too  ill  to  leave  his  bed,  but 
as  a Frenchman,  an  official  of  the  King,  and  seigneur  of  the 
parish,  he  wished  there  and  then  to  make  his  confession.  And 
he  put  the  usual  fee  of  six  francs  into  the  Capuchin’s  hand.  The 
poor  man,  with  the  fear  of  his  Bishop  before  his  eyes,  nervously 
temporised,  said  he  was  very  busy  and  would  return  in  a few 
days. 

‘ Trust  me  to  get  even  with  him  ! ’ cries  the  patient  when 


M t.  75]  WATCHMAKERS  AND  WEAVERS 


451 


M.  le  Capuchin  had  retired.  Burgos,  ‘a  kind  of  surgeon,’  is  sent 
for,  and  having  felt  the  invalid’s  pulse,  is  fool  enough  to  say  that 
it  is  excellent. 

‘ What,  you  ignorant  fellow  ! Excellent  ? ’ roars  the  sick  man. 

Burgos  feels  it  again.  It  is  a very  different  pulse  this  time, 
and  M.  de  Voltaire  is  in  a high  fever. 

‘ Then  go  and  tell  the  priest.’ 

Six  days  elapsed  and  no  priest  appeared.  So  the  very  active- 
minded  invalid  caused  the  whole  household  to  be  roused  in  a 
body  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  and  to  hurry  off  to  the  cure 
saying  their  master  was  dying  and  presenting  a certificate  signed 
by  himself,  Wagniere,  Bigex,  and  Burgos,  which  declared  the 
invalid’s  pious  desire  to  die  fortified  with  the  Sacraments  and  in 
the  bosom  of  the  faith  in  which  he  was  born  and  had  lived. 

Neither  cur6  nor  Capuchin  appeared. 

Then  Voltaire  sent  a lawyer  to  the  cure,  saying  that  if  he  did 
not  come,  the  Lord  of  Ferney  would  denounce  him  to  the  Parlia- 
ment as  having  refused  the  Sacraments  to  a dying  man. 

The  poor  cure  was  in  such  a fright  that  he  was  attacked  on 
the  spot,  says  Wagniere,  by  the  colic. 

On  March  Bl,  Voltaire  drew  up  before  a notary  a statement 
in  legal  form  declaring  himself,  in  spite  of  calumnies,  to  be  a 
sincere  Catholic.  Among  others  the  complaisant  Father  Adam 
witnessed  this  statement. 

The  next  day,  April  1,  the  Capuchin  appeared  at  Ferney. 
The  Bishop  of  Annecy  had  been  consulted,  and  now  sent  by  the 
Capuchin  a profession  of  faith  for  Voltaire  to  sign. 

The  invalid,  who  had  already  recited  a hurried  jumble  of  the 
Pater,  the  Credo,  and  the  Confiteor,  replied  that  the  Creed  was 
supposed  to  contain  the  whole  faith ; and  though  the  unhappy 
Capuchin  went  on  presenting  to  him  at  intervals  the  Bishop’s 
paper  to  sign,  he  would  do  nothing  but  repeat  his  statement 
about  the  Creed.  After  having  delivered  to  the  Capuchin  a long 
homily  on  morality  and  tolerance  (which  Wagniere  found  ‘ very 
touching  and  pathetic  ’ ) the  sick  man  suddenly  called  out  loudly, 
‘ Give  me  absolution  at  once,’  which  the  terrified  confessor,  who 
had  entirely  lost  his  head,  did.  Then  Voltaire  sent  for  the  cure, 
who  administered  the  Sacrament. 

The  notary  was  also  present.  ‘ At  the  very  instant  the  priest 

G G 2 


452 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1769 


gave  the  wafer  to  M.  de  Voltaire’  he  declared  aloud  that  he 
sincerely  pardoned  those  who  had  calumniated  him  to  the  King 
‘ and  who  have  not  succeeded  in  their  base  design,  and  I demand 
a record  of  my  declaration  from  the  notary.’  He  recorded  it. 
No  sooner  was  Voltaire  left  to  himself  than  this  amazing  invalid 
jumped  out  of  bed  and  went  for  a walk  in  the  garden. 

Meanwhile,  cure  and  Capuchin  laid  their  terrified  heads 
together  and  bethought  themselves  of  some  means  to  avoid  the 
consequences  of  having  absolved  and  given  the  mass  to  the  scoffer 
without  his  having  signed  the  declaration  drawn  up  by  the 
Bishop. 

On  April  15,  they  summoned  seven  witnesses  whom  they  had 
persuaded  to  declare  on  oath  that  they  had  heard  M.  de  Voltaire 
pronounce  a complete  and  satisfactory  confession  of  faith,  which 
confession  they  invented  and  sent  to  the  Bishop. 

The  hocus-pocus  was  on  both  sides,  it  will  be  seen.  But 
Voltaire  was  responsible  for  it  all.  Paris — even  Paris — received 
the  news  of  his  ‘ unpardonable  buffoonery  ’ ‘ pretty  badly.’  The 
d’Argentals  entirely  disapproved  of  it,  and  Dr.  Tronchin  con- 
demned it  with  severity. 

‘ Useless  mechancetes  are  very  foolish,’  Voltaire  had  said. 
He  regarded  this  one  as  indispensable.  When  he  wrote  to  his 
Angels  excusing  himself,  he  declared  that  he  had  need  of  a 
buckler  to  withstand  the  mortal  blows  of  sacerdotal  calumny, 
and  that  such  a duty,  neglected,  might  at  his  death  have  had  very 
unpleasant  consequences  for  his  family.  These  were  not  suffi- 
cient reasons  for  his  act.  But  they  at  least  free  him  from  ‘ the 
reproach  of  erecting  hypocrisy  into  a deliberate  doctrine.’  As 
Condorcet  says,  ‘ such  deceptions  did  not  deceive,  while  they  did 
protect.’  ‘Disagreeable  as  these  temporisings  are  to  us,’  they 
damn  deeper  the  time  which  made  them  a pressing  expedient, 
than  the  time-server. 

As  the  Bishop  of  Annecy  had  accused  Voltaire  of  holding 
impious  conversations  at  his  dinner-table,  he  now  took  advantage 
of  Madame  Denis’s  absence  to  have  pious  works  read  aloud  to 
him  at  that  meal.  When  a President  of  the  Parliament  of 
Dijon  was  dining  with  him,  Massillon,  of  whom  Voltaire  was  a 
warm  admirer,  was  the  author  chosen.  ‘ What  style  ! What 
harmony ! What  eloquence  ! ’ cries  the  Patriarch  of  Ferney  as 


JEt.  75]  WATCHMAKERS  AND  WEAVERS 


453 


he  listens  to  those  magnificent  periods,  to  the  denunciations  like 
a god’s.  The  reader  continued  for  three  or  four  pages. 

‘Off  with  Massillon!’  cries  Voltaire,  and  ‘he  gave  himself 
up  to  all  the  folly  and  verve  of  his  imagination.’  Irreverence  ? 
Malicious  mockery  ? It  has  been  generally  thought  so.  May  it 
not  rather  have  been  that  both  sentiments  were  perfectly  genuine  ? 
that  in  one  there  expressed  itself  the  passionate  admiration  and 
in  the  other  the  irresponsible  liveliness,  of  which  this  extra- 
ordinary character  was  equally  capable  ? 

Though  he  had  nearly  harried  the  life  out  of  one  poor  Capu- 
chin of  Gex,  though  he  had  wantonly  insulted  the  faith  of  all  the 
Capuchins,  almost  his  next  act  was  to  obtain  for  them,  through 
Choiseul,  an  annuity  of  six  hundred  francs  for  the  Gex  monastery, 
in  return  for  which  benefit  the  Brothers  gave  him  the  title  of 
Temporal  Father  of  the  Capuchins  of  Gex.  He  derived  a 
monkeyish  delight  from  it;  used  to  sign  his  letters  with  a 
cross,  ‘ "J",  Brother  Voltaire  unworthy  Capuchin  ’ ; but  then  he 
also  derived  an  honest  delight  from  the  good  he  had  been  able  to 
do  the  monastery. 

Who  can  explain  him  ? 

Presently  he  was  writing  to  Cardinal  Bernis  to  obtain  the 
Pope’s  permission  for  Father  Adam  to  wear  a wig  on  his  bald 
head  during  mass.  The  climate  was  cold,  the  poor  Father 
rheumatic,  and  his  Holiness  had  been  obliged  to  forbid  wigs  to 
the  priesthood  as  they  had  so  often  been  used  as  a disguise  for 
unworthy  purposes. 

All  through  religious  controversies  and  irreligious  acts, 
Voltaire  was  engaged  in  a long,  constant,  and  very  flattering 
correspondence  with  Catherine  the  Great.  Even  Frederick,  in 
the  beguiling  days  before  the  Prussian  visits,  had  not  so  gratified 
Voltaire’s  self-love.  Voltaire  was  the  teacher,  and  Catherine,  the 
greatest  of  queens  and  the  cleverest  of  women,  his  humble  pupil. 
In  1768  she  had  taken  his  advice — there  is  no  subtler  form 
of  flattery — upon  inoculation,  and  herself  submitted  to  the 
operation.  And  in  this  1769  she  sent  him  the  loveliest  pelisse 
of  Russian  sable,  a snuff-box  she  had  turned  with  her  own  royal 
hands,  her  portrait  set  in  diamonds,  and  an  epitome  of  the  laws 
with  which  she  governed  her  great  empire.  Here  surely  was  balm 
for  solitude,  calumny,  sickness,  old  age,  every  mortal  misfortune ! 


454 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1769 


Voltaire  warmed  body  and  soul  through  the  snowy  Swiss  spring 
in  that  gorgeous  pelisse.  In  March,  he  had  another  present, 
which  delighted  his  queer  old  heart  hardly  less.  Saint-Lambert 
— Saint-Lambert,  who  had  robbed  him  of  his  mistress  and 
wounded  him  with  a wound  which  another  man  could  never  have 
forgiven  or  forgotten — sent  him  his  poem,  ‘ The  Seasons.’  And 
the  poet  Voltaire  writes  to  his  brother  of  the  lyre  the  most  charm- 
ing compliments  and  congratulations. 

Before  this,  he  was  writing  the  kindest  letters  to  La  Harpe 
again.  When  Madame  Denis,  in  the  latter  half  of  this  October 
1769  and  after  an  absence  of  a little  less  than  eighteen  months, 
burst  into  Ferney,  her  uncle  seems  to  have  folded  her  in  his  arms, 
received  her  with  as  much  delight  as  if  she  had  always  been 
trustworthy,  practical,  sensible,  and  considerate,  and  to  have  let 
bygones  be  bygones  as  only  he  knew  how. 

The  Dupuits  were  already  home  again  ; and  Voltaire  was 
busy  with  a new  business  which  had  been  in  his  mind  since  he 
first  came  to  Ferney,  and  in  practical  existence  at  least  since  1767. 

From  the  moment  he  had  bought  his  estates  he  had  felt  the 
full  weight  of  his  responsibilities  as  a landowner,  and  realised 
as  keenly  as  Arthur  Young,  the  philosophic  farmer  who  rode 
through  France  prophesying  her  downfall,  that  agriculture  is  the 
true  wealth  of  a nation. 

4 The  best  thing  we  have  to  do  on  earth  is  to  cultivate  it.’ 

At  more  than  threescore  years  and  ten,  this  old  son  of  the 
pavement  had  set  himself  to  learn,  and  did  learn,  the  whole 
technique  of  agriculture.  Directly  he  bought  Ferney  he  began 
putting  the  barren  land  round  it  under  cultivation,  and  so  occu- 
pied all  persons  on  his  estates  who  were  out  of  work.  When  he 
was  seventy-eight  he  was  still  hard  at  work  with  his  own  hands 
on  that  field  which  had  been  called  Voltaire’s  Field,  because 
he  cultivated  it  entirely  himself. 

It  has  been  seen  how  he  planted  avenues  of  trees.  Four 
times  over  he  lined  his  drive  with  chestnut  and  walnut  trees,  and 
four  times  they  nearly  all  died,  or  were  wantonly  destroyed  by 
the  peasants.  ‘ However,  I am  not  daunted.  The  others  laugh 
at  me.  Neither  my  old  age  nor  my  complaints  nor  the  severity 
of  the  climate  discourage  me.  To  have  cultivated  a field  and 
made  twenty  trees  grow  is  a good  which  will  never  be  lost.’ 


Mt.  75] 


WATCHMAKERS  AND  WEAVERS 


455 


He  entered  into  a long  correspondence  with  Moreau — that  rare 
being,  a practical  Political  Economist.  He  delighted  in  Galiani’s 
famous  4 Dialogues  on  Corn  ’ — never  was  man  in  the  right  so 
wittily  before — and  in  this  very  1769  he  was  thanking  Abbe 
Mords-les-Morellet  for  his  4 Dictionary  of  Commerce/ 

For,  after  all,  the  Land  meant  the  People ; and  commerce 
there  must  be,  if  the  work  of  the  People  on  the  Land  were  to  be 
remunerative. 

Many  terrible  accounts  have  been  given  of  the  condition  of 
the  French  poor  before  the  Revolution.  But  theirs  was  a misery 
which  no  passion  and  eloquence  can  overstate. 

Forbidden  at  certain  seasons  to  guard  their  wretched  pieces  of 
land  by  fences  lest  they  should  interfere  with  my  lord’s  hunt,  or 
to  manure  their  miserable  crops  lest  they  should  spoil  the  flavour 
of  my  lord’s  game ; forbidden,  at  hatching  seasons,  to  weed  those 
crops  lest  they  should  disturb  the  partridges  ; and  forbidden, 
without  special  permission,  to  build  a shed  in  which  to  store  their 
grain — the  fruit  of  their  lands  and  their  labour,  if  there  was  any 
such  fruit,  was  always  lost  to  them. 

Taxes  alone  deprived  them  of  three-quarters  of  what  they 
earned.  On  one  side  was  the  corvee,  or  the  right  of  the  lord  to 
his  peasants’  labour  without  paying  for  it ; and  the  taille,  or  the 
tax  on  property,  which  exacted  a certain  sum  from  each  village : 
so  that  if  the  rich  would  not  pay,  the  poor  must . 

Add  to  this  the  toll-gates,  so  numerous  that  fish  brought  from 
Harfleur  to  Paris  paid  eleven  times  its  value  en  route  ; the  fines 
exacted  when  land  was  bought  or  sold ; above  all,  the  enormous 
tax  upon  salt,  which  soon  was  as  the  match  to  fire  the  gunpowder 
of  the  Revolution ; the  tithes  exacted  by  the  Church  ; the  fees 
for  masses  for  the  dead,  for  burying,  christening,  and  marrying, 
coupled  with  the  bitter  injustice  that  the  clergy  of  that  Church 
were  themselves  exempt  from  all  taxation. 

Add  to  these  regular  taxes  the  irregular  ones. 

On  the  accession  of  Louis  XV.  one  was  levied,  called  the  Tax 
of  the  Joyful  Accession.  Joyful ! The  people  who  paid  it  lived 
in  a windowless,  one-roomed  hut  of  peat  or  clay ; clothed  in  the 
filthiest  rags;  ignorant,  bestial,  degraded;  creatures  who  never 
knew  youth  or  hope : who  died  in  unrecorded  thousands,  of 
pestilence  and  famine;  or  lived,  to  their  own  cruel  misery,  a 


456 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIKE 


[1769 


few  dark  years  ‘ on  a little  black  bread,  and  not  enough  of 
that.’ 

Such  were  the  fifty  poor  of  Ferney  as  Voltaire  found  them, 
but  not  the  twelve  hundred  he  left. 

Whatever  his  sins  were — and  they  were  many — he  had  one  of 
the  noblest  and  most  difficult  of  virtues — a far  higher  conception 
of  his  duty  to  others  than  the  men  of  his  time.  It  was  fashionable 
to  talk  philanthropy  in  the  eighteenth  century,  but  dangerous,  as 
well  as  unmodish,  to  practise  it. 

‘ True  philosophy  . . .*  wrote  the  great  Doer  in  the  midst  of 
the  Dreamers,  ‘ makes  the  earth  fertile  and  the  people  happier. 
The  true  philosopher  cultivates  the  land,  increases  the  number  of 
the  ploughs,  and  so  of  the  inhabitants ; occupies  the  poor  man, 
and  thus  enriches  him ; encourages  marriages,  cares  for  the 
orphan ; does  not  grumble  at  necessary  taxes,  and  puts  the 
labourer  in  a condition  to  pay  them  promptly.* 

He  had  begun  by  getting  back  for  the  Ferney  poor  that  tithe 
of  which  Ancian  had  deprived  them,  and  by  making  the  peasants 
mend  and  make  roads — at  fair  wages.  Later,  he  petitioned  the 
King  for  ‘ some  privileges  for  my  children  * ; and  Gex  was  at 
last  declared  free  from  all  the  taxes  of  the  farmers-general, 
and  salt,  which  used  to  be  ten  sous  the  pound,  came  down  to 
four. 

His  building  operations  at  both  the  church  and  chateau 
gave  occupation  to  many  masons.  Then  the  masons  must  have 
decent  dwellings  in  which  to  live  themselves  ; and  here  was  more 
work. 


In  1767  he  could  write  that  he  had  formed  a colony  at  Ferney ; 
that  he  had  established  there  three  merchants,  artists,  and  a 
doctor,  and  was  building  houses  for  them.  By  1769  he  recorded 
with  an  honest  pride  that  he  had  quadrupled  the  number  of  the 
parishioners,  and  that  there  was  not  a poor  man  among  them ; 
that  he  had  under  his  immediate  supervision  two  hundred  workers, 
and  was  the  means  of  life  to  everyone  round  him. 

Nor  did  he  forget  to  provide  them  with  pleasure  as  well  as 
with  work.  Every  Sunday  the  young  people  of  the  colony  used 
to  come  up  to  the  chateau  to  dance.  Their  host  provided 
them  with  refreshments,  and  was  the  happiest  spectator  of  their 
happiness. 


M T.  75] 


WATCHMAKERS  AND  WEAVERS 


457 


Then  he  started  a school,  and  himself  paid  the  schoolmaster.  ^ 
There  had  been  a time  when  he  had  thought  that  ‘ it  is  not  the 
labourer  one  must  teach,  it  is  the  bon  bourgeois , the  inhabitant  of 
towns  : that  enterprise  is  grand  and  great  enough,’  which,  for  his 
day,  it  certainly  was.  It  was  a hundred  years  in  advance  of  his 
time.  Even  that  drastic  reformer,  Frederick  the  Great,  had 
announced  superbly,  ‘ The  vulgar  do  not  deserve  enlightenment.’ 

So  what  wonder  that  in  1768  even  a clearsighted  Voltaire  prayed 
for  ‘ ignorant  brothers  to  follow  my  plough  ’ ? 

The  wonder  rather  is  that  by  1767  his  views  had  so  enor- 
mously progressed  that  when  Linguet,  the  barrister,  wrote  to  him 
that  in  his  opinion  all  was  lost  if  the  canaille  were  shown  that 
they  too  could  reason,  he  emphatically  answered,  instancing  the 
intelligent  Genevans  who  read  as  a relaxation  from  manual 
labour — ‘ No,  Sir ; all  is  not  lost  when  the  people  are  put  into  a 
condition  to  see  that  they  too  have  a mind.  On  the  contrary,  all 
is  lost  when  they  are  treated  like  a herd  of  bulls,  for  sooner  or 
later  they  will  gore  you  with  their  horns.’ 

Prophetic — but  if  many  heard  that  voice  crying  in  the  wilder- 
ness, none  acted  on  his  words,  save  himself. 

But  in  prospering  Ferney  there  was  room  not  only  for  a school 
and  a doctor,  masons  and  labourers,  but  for  special  industries. 
From  the  first,  Voltaire  had  cultivated  silkworms.  He  was  never 
the  man  for  an  idle  hobby.  Why  should  no  use  be  made  of  the 
silk  ? Before  1769,  the  Ferney  theatre,  which  Madame  Denis 
had  lately  used  as  a laundry,  was  turned  into  a silkworm  nursery. 
From  busy  Geneva  came  stocking  weavers,  only  too  glad  to 
colonise  in  a place  where  the  lord  and  master  lent  them  money 
‘ on  very  easy  terms,’  built  decent  dwellings  for  them,  and  gave 
them  the  full  benefit  of  his  knowledge  of  affairs. 

By  September  4, 1769,  Voltaire,  always  alive  to  the  advantages 
of  a good  advertisement,  sent  to  the  Duchesse  de  Choiseul  the 
first  pair  of  silk  stockings  ever  made  on  his  looms.  If  she  would 
but  wear  them  they  must  be  the  mode  ! What  stocking  would 
not  look  beautiful  on  a foot  so  charming  ? Voltaire  found  time 
to  engage  his  Duchess  to  wear  them,  in  a gay,  coquettish,  and 
essentially  French  correspondence.  Madame  had  made  a mistake, 
it  appears,  and  sent  him,  as  a pattern,  a shoe  much  too  large  for 
her.  Neither  his  thousand  schemes  and  labours  nor  his  seventy- 


458 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1770 


five  years  had  spoiled  his  talent  for  flattering  badinage.  His 
Duchess  accepted  his  stockings  and  his  compliments,  showed  both 
to  her  friends,  and  thus  put  some  fifty  to  a hundred  people, 
including  young  Calas  who  was  helping  his  benefactor,  out  of  the 
way  of  want. 

On  February  15,  1770,  the  party  quarrels  in  Geneva  came  to 
a climax — and  bloodshed. 

The  Natives  had  not  forgotten  the  promise  made  to  them  four 
years  earlier.  ‘ If  you  are  forced  to  leave  your  country  ...  I 
shall  still  be  able  to  help  and  protect  you.’ 

Neither  had  Voltaire. 

On  February  10, 1767,  in  writing  to  de  Beauteville,  the  French 
mediator,  he  had  suggested  the  scheme  of  a working  colony — the 
nucleus  of  the  idea  of  some  enterprising  person  enticing  the  great 
watchmaking  industry  of  quarrelsome  Geneva  to  form  a settle- 
ment, which  should  be  managed  by  its  founder  and  should  bear 
his  name.  The  scheme  had  appealed  to  Choiseul.  In  1768,  with 
Voltaire’s  co-operation  and  approval,  that  minister  founded  the 
colony  of  Versoix — or  Versoy,  as  Voltaire  spells  it — which  was 
designed  to  be  what  Ferney  actually  became. 

The  crisis  of  February  15,  1770,  caused  great  numbers  of  the 
Native  watchmakers  of  Geneva  to  flee  from  the  city  and  take 
refuge  at  Versoix  and  at  Ferney.  Versoix  was  unequal  to  the 
emergency.  There  were  no  houses  for  the  workers.  But  Ferney 
rose  to  the  occasion.  That  was  always  part  of  its  old  master’s 
genius. 

Only  a few  months  after  the  Natives  had  first  consulted  him, 
this  far-seeing  person  had  begun  to  build  workmen’s  dwellings  in 
his  village.  The  overflow  from  those  ‘ pretty  houses  of  freestone,’ 
he  now  took  into  the  chateau  itself.  So  far,  so  good. 

The  next  thing  to  do  was  to  obtain  the  permission  for  his 
settlement  from  the  authorities.  The  authorities  were  personified 
by  M.  de  Choiseul.  Voltaire  had  helped  him  with  his  Versoix. 
So  Choiseul  could  not,  and  did  not,  refuse  to  help  Voltaire  with 
Ferney. 

To  start  the  watchmakers  in  their  new  home  at  their  old 
trade,  Voltaire  advanced  sixty  thousand  livres.  He  at  once  found 
occupation  for  fifty  Genevan  workmen,  not  counting  the  in- 
habitants of  Gex.  He  himself  bought  gold,  silver,  and  jewels  for 


JEt.  76]  WATCHMAKERS  AND  WEAVERS 


459 


the  work,  a better  bargain  than  the  workpeople  could  do  for  them- 
selves. 

In  six  weeks  he  had  watches  ready  for  sale — of  exquisite 
workmanship,  artistic  design,  and  to  be  sold  at  least  one-third 
cheaper  than  they  could  be  in  Geneva.  The  Duke  of  Choiseul 
bought  the  first  six  watches  ever  made  by  Voltaire’s  manufactory. 

By  April  9 the  old  courtier  was  promising  the  Duchess  that  she 
should  soon  have  one  worthy  to  wear  even  at  her  waist. 

Then  he  began  his  system  of  personal  advertisement.  The 
handsomest  commission  in  the  world  on  every  watch  he  sold 
could  not  have  made  the  neediest  agent  work  harder  or  more 
cunningly  than  did  this  Voltaire,  who  received  at  first  no  com- 
mission, never  could  expect  a large  one,  and  had  need  of  neither 
large  nor  small. 

On  June  5,  1770,  he  sent  round  a circular  to  all  the  foreign 
ambassadors — £ diplomacy  en  masse  ’ — a most  beautiful  circular 
from  1 The  Royal  Manufactory  of  Ferney  ’ (in  capital  letters),  and 
recommending  watches — £ plain  silver,’  from  three  louis,  to 
repeaters  at  forty-two.  That  flaming  document  is  still  pre- 
served. 

The  advertiser  wrote  a letter  with  it.  £ 1 never  write  for  the 
sake  of  writing,’  he  said ; ‘ but  when  I have  a subject  I do  not 
spare  my  pen,  old  and  dying  as  I am.’ 

Catherine  the  Great  was  appealed  to  ; and  in  answer  to  her 
£ vaguely  magnificent  order  for  watches  ’ to  £ the  value  of  some 
thousands  of  roubles,’  Voltaire  had  to  apologise  for  his  workmen 
having  taken  advantage  of  her  goodness,  and  sent  her  watches  to 
the  value  of  eight  thousand  ! 

The  Empress  replied  imperially — as  she  was  obliged  to  do — 
that  such  an  expense  would  not  ruin  her.  And  in  his  next  letter 
her  artful  old  friend  warmly  recommended  his  pendulum  clocks 
— £ which  we  are  now  making  ’ — and  asked  her  to  assist  him 
in  promoting  a watch  trade  between  Ferney  and  China.  She 
did. 

Ferney  was  soon  sending  watches  not  only  to  China,  but  to 
Spain,  Italy,  Russia,  Holland,  America,  Turkey,  Portugal,  and 
North  Africa,  besides  carrying  on  an  enormous  trade  with 
Paris. 

£ Give  me  a chance  and  I am  the  man  to  build  a city,’ 


460 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1770 


said  Voltaire  to  Richelieu.  With  a chance  he  could  have  done 
anything.  Kings  and  commoners,  cardinals,  great  ladies — he 
appealed  to  them  all.  Is  not  rosy-faced  Bernis  at  Rome?  Well, 
why  should  not  he  promote  the  sale  of  watches  for  me  in  the 
Imperial  City  ? 

Bernis  totally  ignored  the  commission.  He  was  almost  the 
only  person  to  whom  Voltaire  applied  who  behaved  so  badly. 
And  Ferney  wrote  him  such  a stinging  reproach  for  his  neglect, 
that  poor  Bernis  must  have  regretted  he  had  not  been  more 
obliging. 

As  for  Frederick  the  Great,  he  did  better  even  than  buy 
watches  by  the  cartload  like  the  other  great  potentate,  Catherine. 

He  gave  for  twelve  years  free  lodging  in  Berlin,  with  exemp- 
tion from  all  taxation,  to  eighteen  families  of  refugee  Genevan 
watchmakers.  This  started  the  watch-making  industry  in  his 
capital. 

To  Madame  Dubarry,  who  had  succeeded  to  the  honours  and 
dishonour  of  the  Pompadour,  the  Gentleman-in-Ordinary-to-the- 
King  sent  presently  the  loveliest  little  watch  set  in  diamonds. 

He  left  no  stone  unturned.  He  supervised  every  detail.  In 
1778  Ferney  sold  ‘ four  thousand  watches  worth  half  a million  of 
francs/  All  losses  Voltaire  bore  himself.  Capable  and  alert  as 
he  was,  they  were  sometimes  heavy. 

He  had  had  a royal  order,  for  instance,  on  the  occasion  of 
the  marriage  of  the  Dauphin  with  Marie  Antoinette,  which  was 
encouraging  but  expensive.  He  was  never  paid. 

Nothing  daunted  him  however.  By  the  June  of  1770  he  had 
begun  building  those  much-needed  houses  in  the  rival,  or  rather 
the  sister,  colony  of  Versoix.  And  then,  as  if  he  found  weaving 
and  watchmaking  insufficient  for  his  energy,  by  1772  he  had 
started  a lacemaking  industry.  That  butterfly  Madame  Saint- 
Julien  must  make  this  airiest  of  gossamer  fabrics — ‘ the  beautiful 
blonde  lace  which  was  made  in  our  village  ’ — the  fashion.  ‘ The 
woman  who  made  it  can  make  more  very  reasonably.  She  can 
add  a dozen  workers  to  the  staff,  and  we  shall  owe  to  you  a 
new  manufactory.’  The  vigorous  boy  who  wrote  the  words, 
originated  the  scheme,  and  carried  it  to  successful  issue,  was  only 
seventy-eight.  He  personally  negotiated  with  the  shop  which 
was  to  buy  and  sell  his  new  wares  when  made.  Cannot  one  see 


Mt.  76]  WATCHMAKERS  AND  WEAVERS 


461 


him  haggling  and  bargaining  and  enjoying  himself,  with  a 
twinkle  in  his  bright  old  eyes  and  a very  humorous  shrewdness 
in  the  curves  of  his  thin  lips  ? 

But  if  he  wanted  a reward  for  all  his  trouble,  he  had  it.  The 
miserable  hamlet  had  become  a thriving  village,  and  the  desert 
place  blossomed  like  a rose.  The  master’s  corn  fed  his  people, 
and  his  bad  wine  (‘ which  is  not  harmful’)  gave  them  drink. 
His  bees  produced  excellent  honey  and  wax,  and  his  hemp  and 
flax,  linen. 

Here  dwelt  together,  as  one  family,  Catholics  and  Huguenots. 
‘ Is  not  this  better  than  St.  Bartholomew  ? * ‘ When  a Catholic 

is  sick,  Protestants  go  and  take  care  of  him  ’ ; and  vice  versa . 
The  good  Protestant  women  prepared  with  their  own  hands  the 
little  portable  altars  for  the  Procession  of  the  Holy  Sacrament, 
and  the  cure  thanked  them  publicly  in  a sermon.  Gros  had 
died — of  drink,  said  Voltaire — and  his  place  had  been  taken  by 
Hugenot,  an  excellent  priest,  generous  and  liberal-minded,  the 
friend  of  all  his  people  whatever  their  faith,  and  of  M.  de 
Voltaire,  who  was  supposed  to  have  none  at  all. 

Here  surely  was  the  tree  of  Tolerance  he  had  planted,  bearing 
beautiful  fruit.  It  might  well  warm  his  old  heart  to  see  his  little 
colony  firm  on  1 those  two  pivots  of  the  wealth  of  a state,  be  it 
little  or  great,  freedom  of  trade  and  freedom  of  conscience.’ 

The  man  who  worked  the  case  of  Calas  for  three  years,  the 
case  of  Sirven  for  seven,  and  the  cases  of  Lally  and  d’Etallonde 
for  twelve,  was  not  likely  to  grow  tired  of  the  little  colony  always 
beneath  his  eyes.  Nor  was  he  unmindful  of  the  claims  not  only 
Ferney,  but  all  Gex,  had  upon  his  bounty.  When  it  was 
devastated  by  famine  in  1771  he  had  corn  sent  him  from  Sicily, 
and  sold  it  much  under  cost  price  to  his  starving  children  and 
the  poor  people  of  the  province.  Their  sufferings  and  sorrows 
were  his  own.  He  pleaded  passionately  for  those  who  were,  and 
had  been  for  generations,  miserable  with  the  hopeless  misery  that 
is  dumb  ; but  who,  before  many  years  were  past,  were  to  cry 
aloud  their  wrongs  with  a great  and  terrible  voice  which  would 
reach  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 

All  Voltaire’s  letters  in  his  later  years  are  full  of  his  watch- 
makers and  weavers,  their  prosperity  or  their  poverty,  what  he  had 
done  for  them  or  what  he  would  do.  Did  his  own  glorification 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1770 


no  part  in  his  schemes  ? It  doubtless  played  some.  But 
the' lact  that  he  may  have  been  vain  does  not  alter  the  fact  that 
h|  set  an  example  which  Christians  have  nobly  followed,  but 
which,  in  his  day  at  least,  they  certainly  did  not  set  him . 

^Voltaire,  sceptic  and  scoffer,  too  often  of  evil  life  and  unclean 
lip&;  was  not  only  the  High  Priest  of  Tolerance,  but  the  first 
great  practical  philanthropist  of  his  century. 


Mt.  76] 


463 


CHAPTER  XLI 

THE  PIGALLE  STATUE, 

AND  THE  VINDICATION  OF  DALLY 

One  spring  evening  of  the  year  1770  the  idea  was  suggested,  at 
the  table  of  the  Neckers  in  Paris,  of  erecting  a statue  to  the  great 
Voltaire. 

Necker  was  a prosperous  banker,  and,  to  be,  Controller- 
General. 

Madame,  his  wife,  once  the  beloved  of  Gibbon,  was  the 
daughter  of  a Swiss  minister  and  one  of  the  first  salonieres  in 
the  capital. 

The  plan  was  immediately  approved  and  acted  upon  by  her 
seventeen  guests.  They  formed  themselves  into  a committee 
to  receive  subscriptions,  and  decided  that  the  work  should  be 
entrusted  to  the  famous  Pigalle,  who  was  to  fix  his  own  price 
which  he  did  very  modestly. 

Madame  Necker  herself  communicated  the  plan  to  Voltaire. 

He  was  boyishly  delighted  at  the  compliment.  He  answered 
gaily  that  he  was  seventy-six  and  had  just  had  a long  illness 
which  had  treated  both  his  mind  and  body  very  badly,  and  that 
if  Pigalle  was  to  come  and  model  his  face  he  must  first  have  a 
face  to  model.  6 You  would  hardly  guess  where  it  ought  to  be. 
My  eyes  have  sunk  three  inches  ; my  cheeks  are  like  old  parch- 
ment ; . . . the  few  teeth  I had  are  gone.  . . . This  is  not 
coquetry,  it  is  truth.’ 

It  was.  Dr.  Burney,  who  visited  Ferney  in  this  year,  spoke 
of  his  host  as  a living  skeleton — ‘ mere  skin  and  bone  ’ — but  he 
spoke,  too,  like  everybody  else,  of  the  gleaming  eyes  full  of  living 
fire  ; and  d’Alembert  wrote  to  the  model  himself  : 4 Genius  . . . 
has  always  a countenance  which  genius,  its  brother,  will  easily 
find.’ 


464 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1770 


Subscriptions  had  flowed  in  from  the  first  with  unprecedented 
generosity.  The  magnificent  Richelieu  contributed  magnificently. 
Frederick,  one  of  the  first  to  wish  to  give,  wrote  to  ask  d’Alembert 
of  what  amount  his  gift  should  be. 

‘An  ecu,  Sire,  and  your  name,’  says  d’Alembert.  But 
Frederick  gave  more  than  money.  In  noble  words  and  a most 
generous  eulogy,  he  blotted  out  Frankfort  and  the  past  for  ever. 
‘ The  finest  monument  to  Voltaire  is  the  one  he  has  erected 
himself.  His  work  will  endure  when  the  Basilisk  of  St.  Peter, 
the  Louvre,  and  all  the  buildings  which  human  vanity  supposes 
eternal,  have  perished.’ 

Voltaire  was  delighted  at  Frederick’s  subscription  (which  of 
course  was  not  limited  to  words),  not  only  because  that  great 
name  would  look  nobly,  but  for  a more  characteristic  reason.  ‘ It 
would  save  money  to  too  generous  literary  men,  who  have  none.’ 

Among  the  1 too  generous  literary  men  ’ were  four  old 
enemies — Rousseau,  Freron,  Palissot,  and  La  Beaumelle.  Their 
money  was  returned — except  that  of  Rousseau.  And  peace- 
making d’Alembert  had  very  hard  work  to  get  vif  Voltaire  to 
accept  Jean  Jacques’  gift  as  a ‘ reparation.’ 

Another  foe  more  unforgiving — or  more  honest — declined  to 
erive  at  all.  ‘ I will  not  give  a sou  to  the  subscription,’  says 
Piron,  ‘ but  I will  undertake  the  inscription.’ 

About  June  16,  Pigalle,  sculptor  to  the  King  and  Chancellor 
of  the  Academy  of  Painting,  arrived  at  Ferney,  on  work  intent. 
But  the  model  was  so  agreeable  a host ! True,  in  spite  of  the 
parties  and  distractions,  he  gave  the  sculptor  a sitting  every  day. 
But  as  he  never  kept  still  a moment  and  was  dictating  letters, 
with  much  vivid  French  gesticulation,  to  Wagniere  the  whole 
time,  it  was  not  wonderful  that  on  the  seventh  day  of  a visit 
which  was  to  last  eight,  M.  Pigalle  discovered  that  he  had  done 
nothing  at  all.  Fortunately,  on  that  seventh  day — June  23, 
1770 — the  conversation  turned  upon  the  Golden  Calf  of  the 
Children  of  Israel.  Voltaire  was  so  childishly  delighted  when 
Pigalle  declared  that  such  a thing  would  take  at  least  six  months 
to  make — as  disproving  the  Mosaic  testimony  that  it  was  made 
in  twenty-four  hours — that  during  the  rest  of  the  sitting  the 
model  was  as  quiet  and  obedient  as  possible.  The  results  were 
so  satisfactory  that  Pigalle  resolved  not  to  attempt  another 


M t.  76] 


THE  PIGALLE  STATUE 


465 


interview,  and  the  next  morning  left  Ferney  quietly  and  without 
seeing  anyone. 

The  Golden  Calf  incident  so  pleased  Voltaire  that  he  at  once 
wrote  it  down  and  dated  it.  He  repeated  it,  with  much  chuckling, 
to  all  his  correspondents  ; wrote  an  article  on  Casting  for  his 
dear  ‘Philosophical  Dictionary,7  where  he  introduced  it  again, 
most  amusingly;  and  in  1776  wrote  a pamphlet — ‘ A Christian 
against  Six  Jews  7 — in  which  he  put  Pigalle’s  professional  testi- 
mony in  opposition  to  that  of  the  sacred  writers. 

Another  account  of  the  episode  declares  that  Pigalle  kept  his 
sitter  quiet  by  talking  of  his  dear  ‘ Pucelle.’ 

There  seems  no  reason  why  both  stories  should  not  be  true. 

Pigalle’s  statue  disappointed  his  own  generation,  and  is  only 
a curiosity  to  ours. 

The  best  statue  of  Voltaire  is  usually  considered  to  be  the  one 
by  Houdon,  of  a very  old,  sitting,  draped  figure,  with  a face  far 
from  unamiable  or  unkindly,  excessively  able  and  shrewd,  with 
the  most  steady,  penetrating  old  eyes,  and  mocking  lips  closed 
over  the  toothless  mouth. 

Pigalle  represented  his  subject  entirely  unclad — for  the  best 
of  all  reasons,  said  Grimm,  he  could  not  do  drapery.  Good 
Madame  Necker,  mindful  of  her  Calvinistic  education,  objected  to 
the  nakedness.  But  not  old  Voltaire.  ‘ It  is  all  one  to  me,7  he 
said  airily ; and  added  sensibly,  ‘ M.  Pigalle  must  be  left  absolute 
master  of  his  statue.  ...  It  is  a crime  ...  to  put  fetters  on 
genius.7 

The  want  of  clothing,  however,  gave  rise  to  many  doubtful 
jokes  in  eighteenth-century  Paris,  and  his  enemies  made  very 
spiteful  epigrams  on  the  meagreness  of  the  figure.  ‘ Posterity 
will  not  want  to  count  M.  de  Voltaire's  ribs,7  says  Freron  sarcasti- 
cally. And  though  Voltaire  pretended  to  laugh  at  such  gibes — 
and  laughed  himself  at  all  his  bodily  defects — he  was  still  morally 
thin-skinned.  ‘ A statue  is  no  consolation,7  he  wrote  dismally  to 
d’Argental,  ‘ when  so  many  enemies  conspire  to  cover  it  with 
mud.7 

But  there  were  more  friends  to  cover  it  with  adulation.  In 
1772  Mademoiselle  Clairon  surprised  the  habifoi£s  of  her  rooms 
one  evening  by  drawing  back  a curtain  and  showing  them  the 
bust  of  Voltaire  on  an  altar.  She  put  a laurel  crown  on  the 

H H 


466 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIKE 


[1770 


head,  and  in  her  ‘ noble  and  beautiful  voice  7 recited  an  ode  of 
Marmontel’s  which,  particularly  in  its  Apostrophe  to  Envy, 
produced  a great  effect. 

When  Voltaire  heard  of  the  incident,  he  got  out  his  old  lyre 
and  thanked  Mademoiselle  in  verse  of  extraordinary  freshness — 
‘ very  pretty  for  a young  man  of  only  seventy-nine,’  says  Grimm. 

While  his  statue  was  the  topic  of  Paris,  the  original  was 
entertaining  at  least  three  celebrated  visitors  at  Ferney  : Dr. 
Burney,  d’Alembert,  and  Condorcet. 

Dr.  Burney,  the  father  of  Johnson’s  dear  protegee , Fanny, 
came  to  Geneva  in  the  course  of  his  Musical  Tour  through  France 
and  Italy. 

Hearing  that  Voltaire  relentlessly  snubbed  the  curious  idle 
who  only  came  ‘ to  look  at  the  wild  beast,’  the  good  pompous 
Doctor  was  a little  nervous  of  the  reception  he  might  meet.  But 
all  went  well. 

A servant,  presumably  Wagniere,  introduced  Burney  to  his 
master’s  sanctum,  and  to  the  library,  where  Burney  saw  a portrait 
of  young  Dupuits,  whom  he  supposed  to  be  Voltaire’s  brother, 
though  Wagniere  told  him  Voltaire  was  seventy-eight  (he  was 
really  seventy- six),  and  the  difference  in  age  between  the  1 brothers  ’ 
must  have  been  forty  years  at  the  least. 

Then  Dr.  Burney  was  introduced  to  the  great  man  himself, 
who  still  worked,  said  Wagniere,  ten  hours  a day  and  wrote  con- 
stantly without  spectacles.  The  conversation  turned  on  English 
literature,  and  Voltaire  observed  how  England  had  now  no  one 
1 who  lords  it  over  the  rest  like  Dryden,  Pope,  and  Swift  ’ ; and 
remarked,  when  critics  are  silent  it  proves  not  so  much  that  the 
age  is  correct,  as  that  it  is  dull.  Burney  was  shown  the  model 
village — ‘ the  most  innocent  and  the  most  useful  of  all  my 
works  ’ — and  tactfully  departed  before  he  should  have  taken  more 
than  his  share  of  the  great  man’s  time. 

D’Alembert  arrived  at  Ferney  in  the  September  of  1770.  He 
was  supposed  to  be  en  route  to  see  Borne  and  die.  Frederick  the 
Great  had  sent  him  six  thousand  francs  for  the  tour.  But  either, 
as  d’Alembert  told  the  King,  the  prospect  of  the  fatigue  and  the 
bad  inns  daunted  him,  or,  as  Duvernet  says,  Voltaire’s  society  was 
too  seductive.  D’Alembert  returned  the  King  half  of  his  money, 
and  in  two  months  was  back  in  Paris. 


JEt.  76] 


THE  PIGALLE  STATUE 


467 


The  Marquis  de  Condorcet,  who  then  was  celebrated  as  a 
philosophic  and  free-thinking  noble  who  had  wholly  broken  with 
the  religion  and  the  traditions  of  his  caste,  and  now  is  celebrated 
as  the  philosopher  and  litterateur  who  wrote  a brief  and  scholarly 
Life  of  Voltaire  and  who  poisoned  himself  to  escape  the  guillotine, 
was  a fellow-guest  with  d’Alembert. 

Is  it  difficult  to  fancy  the  conversation  between  these  three 
men  over  the  Ferney  supper-table  at  the  magic  hour  when 
Voltaire  was  always  at  his  best,  ‘at  once  light  and  learned,’ 
brilliant  and  subtle?  The  tranquil  cheerfulness  of  that  true 
philosopher,  d’Alembert — ‘his  just  mind  and  inexhaustible 
imagination  ’ — soothed  the  vexations  with  which  he  found  his 
irritable  host  overwhelmed. 

Condorcet,  whom  Voltaire  spoke  of  as  having  ‘ the  same 
hatred  for  oppression  and  fanaticism,  and  the  same  zeal  for 
humanity  ’ as  he  had  himself,  was  as  exempt  from  what  it  was 
then  modish  to  call  ‘ prejudices,’  as  the  gentle  d’Alembert. 

Of  that  brilliant  little  party  there  was  but  one  man  who  still 
clung  to  some  tenets  of  the  old  faith  ; and  that  man  was  Voltaire. 
Du  Pan  records  how  he  heard  him  give  an  ‘ energetic  lesson  ’ at 
his  supper-table  to  his  two  guests,  by  sending  all  the  servants  out 
of  the  room  in  the  middle  of  their  conversation.  ‘ Now,  gentle- 
men, continue  your  attack  on  God.  But  as  I do  not  want  to  be 
strangled  or  robbed  to-night  by  my  servants  they  had  better  not 
hear  you.’ 

‘ Si  Dieu  n'existait  pas  il  faudrait  VinventerJ  Voltaire  had 
said  in  one  of  the  most  famous  lines  in  the  world. 

Baron  Gleichen,  who  was  at  Delices  in  1757,  records  how 
a young  author  sought  to  recommend  himself  to  the  great  man’s 
favour  by  saying  ‘ I am  an  atheist  apprentice  at  your  service.’ 
‘ But  I,’  replied  Voltaire,  ‘ am  a master  Deist.’ 

But  the  pupils  he  had  taught  had  gone  far  beyond  his  teaching. 
Diderot  spoke  of  him  as  ‘ cagot  ’ ; and  the  story  runs  that  some 
fine  lady  of  Paris  dismissed  him  scornfully  in  the  words,  ‘ He  is 
a Deist,  he  is  a bigot.’ 

He  had  no  further  bigotries,  it  is  certain.  A thousand  stories 
are  told  to  illustrate  his  indignation  against  what  he  took  to  be  a 
debasing  fanaticism. 

A Genevan  lady  brought  to  see  him  her  little  girl,  who  was 

H H 2 


468 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1770-71 


as  intelligent  as  she  was  pretty  and  could  learn  everything  but 
her  Catechism,  and  that  she  could  not  understand.  ‘ Ah  ! ’ says 
Voltaire.  ‘ How  reasonable  ! A child  always  speaks  the  truth. 
You  do  not  understand  your  Catechism  ? Do  you  see  these  fine 
peaches  ? Eat  as  many  as  you  like/ 

It  is  recorded,  too,  that  Voltaire  had  always  a special  grudge 
against  Habakkuk : and  when  someone  showed  him  that  he  had 
misrepresented  facts  in  that  prophet’s  history,  ‘ It  is  no  matter,’ 
he  replied  ; 4 Habakkuk  was  capable  of  anything.’ 

There  are  many  other  such  stories  told  of  him.  All  profane 
jests  are  fathered  on  Voltaire.  Some  of  them  have  lost  their 
point  with  the  circumstances  and  surroundings  among  which  they 
were  uttered.  Some  grow  clumsy  in  translation.  Some  are 
without  authenticity.  That  a searching  wit  like  Voltaire,  quite 
unhampered  by  reverence,  must  have  found  abundant  subject  for 
witticism  in  the  degraded  state  of  the  established  religion  of  his 
country  in  his  time,  is  palpable  enough. 

D’Alembert  left.  It  was  his  last  visit  to  Ferney. 

On  December  24,  1770,  the  powerful  Choiseul  was  disgraced 
and  exiled  by  the  far  more  powerful  Dubarry.  ‘ The  coachman 
of  Europe,’  as  Frederick  called  him,  had  been  infinitely  clever 
and  infinitely  unlucky.  If  he  had  made  the  army  and  remade 
the  fleet,  expelled  the  Jesuits,  and  promoted  trade,  art,  and 
literature,  he  had  involved  his  country  in  wars,  for  which  she 
had  wept  tears  of  blood.  He  fell : and  great  was  the  fall  of  him. 

The  tidings  were  received  at  Ferney  with  the  utmost  conster- 
nation. For  Voltaire  personally  Choiseul  had  done  much.  He 
had  helped  in  the  affairs  of  Calas  and  of  Chaumont,  in  that  of  the 
Corneille  Commentary,  and  of  the  blockade  of  Ferney.  And, 
more  than  all,  he  had  protected,  with  the  absolutely  necessary 
protection  none  but  a powerful  minister  could  afford,  the  colony 
of  watchmakers  and  weavers. 

His  disgrace  ruined  Versoix : and  Ferney  rocked  on  her 
foundations. 

The  steady  resolution,  and  perhaps  the  fighting  renown,  of 
her  old  master  tided  his  children  over  the  crisis.  But  there  was 
famine  as  well  as  disturbance  abroad  in  the  land,  and  for  a while 
things  looked  black  indeed. 

On  January  28  of  the  new  year  1771,  Louis  XV.,  d’Aiguillon, 


Mt.  76-77] 


THE  PIGALLE  STATUE 


469 


the  successor  of  Choiseul,  and  Maupeou,  the  Chancellor,  sup- 
pressed the  Parliament  of  Paris,  to  the  general  disgust.  Voltaire 
did  not  share  it.  That  Parliament,  if  it  had  been  forced  at  last 
to  reinstate  the  Calas,  had  condemned  La  Barre,  d’Etallonde,  and 
General  Lally  : it  ‘ was  defiled  with  the  blood  of  the  weak  and 
the  innocent  ’ ; had  burnt  the  works  of  the  Encyclopaedists ; and 
been  so  fiercely  Jansenist  that  wise  men  regretted  the  Jesuits  it 
had  ruined.  In  its  place  were  to  be  established  six  Superior 
Councils  or  Local  Parliaments,  which  were  to  give  justice 
gratuitously  and  to  be  the  final  courts  of  appeal,  thereby  saving 
the  nation  the  enormous  expense  of  conveying  accused  persons 
to  the  capital.  To  be  sure,  the  jury  system  as  practised  in  ideal 
England  was  better  still.  But  in  an  imperfect  world  one  must 
be  satisfied  with  imperfect  progress. 

Voltaire  believed  the  six  sovereign  Councils  to  be  £ the  salva- 
tion of  France  ’ — ‘ one  of  the  best  ideas  since  the  foundation  of 
monarchy.’  As  far  back  as  1769  he  had  attacked  the  old  Parlia- 
ment, under  a very  transparent  anonymity,  in  his  ‘History  of 
the  Parliament  of  Paris.’ 

All  things  considered,  there  was  no  wonder  that  a shrewd 
Maupeou,  knowing  how  bitterly  public  opinion  was  against  him, 
should  call  to  his  aid  the  man  ‘ who  had  led  it  and  fashioned  it 
to  his  taste.’  Voltaire  put  himself  at  the  disposition  of  Maupeou, 
and  for  many  a month  deafened  the  enemy  with  blast  upon  blast 
from  his  famous  old  trumpet. 

If  he  was  quite  disinterested — and  he  was — in  working  under 
Maupeou  for  what  he  felt  convinced  was  ‘ the  liberty,  salvation, 
and  well-being  of  whole  populations,’  it  was  not  at  all  unnatural 
that  Choiseul  should  find  it  hard  to  forgive  this  active  devotion 
to  the  policy  of  his  supplanters. 

The  Duchess,  with  whom  Voltaire  had  coquetted  so  charm- 
ingly over  that  pair  of  silk  stockings,  was  as  much  offended  as 
her  husband.  Madame  du  Deffand,  her  dearest  friend,  was 
offended  too.  And  Voltaire  spared  himself  neither  pains  nor 
time  to  restore  confidence,  to  assure  the  dear  exiles  of  Chanteloup 
in  immense  letters  of  his  sincere  and  unaltering  devotion  to  them  : 
of  his  gratitude  for  the  powerful  protection  of  the  one,  and  the 
gracious  kindness  of  the  other.  Of  course  such  letters  had  no 
effect.  The  haughty  little  Duchess  begged  that  the  correspondence 


470  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1771-72 

might  end.  And  the  most  obstinate  of  men  went  on  writing 
to  her  exactly  the  same. 

There  was  division  in  his  own  house  on  the  subject  of  the 
Parliament  too.  His  nephew,  Mignot,  that  shortsighted,  good- 
natured,  roundabout  abbe,  the  son  of  Catherine,  and  the  brother 
of  Mesdames  Denis  and  Florian,  was,  like  his  uncle,  on  the  side 
of  the  reforms,  and  on  May  20,  1771,  was  made  senior  clerk  of 
the  new  Parliament. 

D’Hornoy,  on  the  other  hand,  Voltaire’s  great-nephew,  had 
been  a councillor  of  the  old  Parliament  and  was  exiled 
with  it. 

However,  politics  apart,  Voltaire  liked  both  nephews,  thought 
them  honest  souls,  and  made  them,  as  has  been  noted,  handsome 
allowances. 

Brochures  against  the  old  Parliament  and  for  the  new  occu- 
pied the  Hermit  of  Ferney  very  actively  during  the  whole  of  the 
year  1771,  but  they  did  not  prevent  him  carrying  on  a corre- 
spondence with  four  sovereigns — Catherine,  Frederick,  Stanislas 
Augustus  Poniatowski,  and  Gustavus  III.  of  Sweden. 

On  December  18  he  began  a new  tragedy,  'The  Laws  of 
Minos.’  It  was  that  dismal  thing,  a play  with  a purpose — 1 to 
make  superstition  execrable,  and  prove  that  when  a law  is  unequal 
there  is  nothing  for  it  but  to  abolish  it.’  It  was  written  in 
honour  of  Maupeou.  The  Chancellor’s  enemies  did  Voltaire  a 
good  turn  by  preventing  it  from  being  played. 

Death  was  busy  just  now  among  both  friends  and  foes  of 
Voltaire.  He  was  fast  reaching  the  age  when  he  was  naturally 
the  last  leaf  on  the  tree.  In  the  December  of  1771  died  Helvetius, 
philosopher  and  farmer-general ; in  the  spring  of  1772,  Duclos, 
who  had  replaced  Voltaire  as  Historiographer  of  France,  and  pre- 
ceded d’Alembert  as  Secretary  to  the  Academy.  Then  fell  a leaf 
from  the  Arouet  branch  itself.  Madame  de  Florian,  always 
delicate,  went  the  way  of  all  flesh  ; and  by  February  1,  1772,  her 
widowed  husband  had  arrived  at  Ferney  in  that  loud  desolation 
which  is  the  herald  of  speedy  consolation. 

He  met  at  Ferney  a very  pretty,  vivacious  little  Protestant 
who  had  been  divorced  from  her  first  husband  for  incompatibility 
of  temper.  The  pair  were  gaily  married  before  April  1,  1772 — to 
the  disgust  of  Madame  Denis,  who  rightly  thought  her  sister  was 


Mt.  77-78] 


THE  PIGALLE  STATUE 


471 


forgotten  too  soon,  but  to  the  delight  of  that  old  matchmaker, 
Voltaire. 

Besides  the  bride  and  bridegroom,  there  was  also  at  hospitable 
Ferney,  Florian’s  nephew,  whom  Voltaire  called  Florianet,  an 
observant  youth  who  lived  to  write  ‘ The  Youth  of  Florian,  or 
Memoirs  of  a Young  Spaniard,’  and  who  had  stayed  here  before 
when  he  was  a boy  of  ten  or  eleven.  He  had  acted  then  as 
a sort  of  page  to  Voltaire,  and  Father  Adam  had  furthered  his 
education  by  setting  him  Latin  exercises.  Voltaire  used  to  help 
the  child  out  of  those  intricacies  concerning  Hostages  and  the 
Gate  of  a City,  play  games  with  him,  and  try  to  wake  in  him 
liveliness  and  wit.  ‘ Seem  witty,  and  the  wit  will  come  ’ was  the 
advice  of  the  wittiest  man  of  his  century. 

Florianet  was  seventeen  now,  and  amused  himself,  during  a 
visit  of  two  months,  with  balls,  hunting,  a quarrel  with  his  new 
aunt,  and  games  with  Marie  Dupuits’  little  girl.  She  was  eight 
years  old  and  very  intelligent,  and  Voltaire  was  fond  of  her  with 
that  fondness  for  all  young  creatures  which  is  surely  an  amiable 
trait  in  a busy  man. 

He  was  hardly  less  fond  of  Wagniere’s  children  (the  Genevan 
boy  was  a married  man  by  this  time,  rearing  a family  at  Ferney), 
who  used  to  play  about  the  room  while  the  Patriarch  dictated  to 
their  father. 

In  this  spring  of  1772  Voltaire  was  occupied  in  building  a 
pretty  little  house  in  the  neighbourhood  for  the  Florian  husband 
and  wife.  The  poor  bride  was  not  destined  to  enjoy  it  long.  She 
died  two  years  later  of  a disease  which  was  called  by  many  extra- 
ordinary names  and  received  the  most  extraordinary  treatment, 
but  which  appears  to  have  been  consumption.  The  Marquis 
immediately  fell  violently  in  love  with  someone  else. 

The  only  significance  of  his  third  Marquise  lies  in  the  fact 
that  she  was  the  bearer  of  a conciliatory  letter  and  a copy  of  his 
‘ Natural  History  ’ from  the  famous  Buffon  to  Voltaire — the  two 
having  previously  been  on  bad  terms. 

More  visitors  flocked  to  Ferney  in  the  autumn  of  1772. 
Lekain  paid  a third  visit,  and,  the  Genevan  theatre  having  been 
burnt,  ‘ bewitched  Geneva  ’ at  Chatelaine  instead. 

Chatelaine  was  a playhouse  which  Voltaire  had  built 
on  French  soil,  but  only  a few  yards  from  the  territory 


472  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1772-73 

of  the  republic,  to  the  great  umbrage  of  ‘Tronchins  and 
syndics.’ 

They  did  not  hate  it  less  in  this  September,  when  Lekain’s 
seductive  genius  drew  their  young  people  within  its  walls  by 
half-past  eleven  a.m.  for  a performance  which  was  to  take  place 
at  four,  and  the  women  wept  and  fainted  at  his  pathos.  Old 
Voltaire  had  a box  reserved  for  him,  cried  like  a schoolgirl  at  one 
moment,  and  the  next  applauded  as  if  he  were  possessed,  by 
thumping  his  stick  violently  on  the  floor  and  crying  aloud,  ‘ It’s 
splendid  ! It  couldn’t  be  better  ! ’ 

A cool-headed  English  visitor,  Dr.  John  Moore,  who  was  here 
during  one  of  Lekain’s  visits,  described  the  performances  as  only 
‘ moderately  good.’ 

Traveller,  physician,  and  writer,  the  author  of  a popular  novel, 
‘ Zelueo,’  and  the  father  of  the  hero  of  Coruna,  Moore  had  fre- 
quent opportunities  of  conversing  with  the  famous  old  skeleton 
who  had  so  ‘much  more  spirit  and  vivacity  than  is  generally 
produced  by  flesh  and  blood.’  He  understood  Voltaire  far  better 
than  most  of  the  English  visitors.  To  be  sure,  he  could  not 
forgive  him  his  adverse  criticisms  on  Shakespeare — the  king  who 
can  do  no  wrong.  But  Dr.  Moore,  himself  a sincere  Christian, 
was  one  of  the  very  few  who  admitted  that  Voltaire  was  as  sincere 
an  unbeliever ; that  his  Deism  was  not  an  offensive  affectation  to 
shock  the  devout,  but  a profound  conviction  ; and  that  ‘ as  soon 
as  he  is  convinced  of  the  truths  of  Christianity  he  will  openly 
avow  his  opinion,  in  health  as  in  sickness,  uniformly  to  his  last 
moment.’ 

Dr.  Moore  also  perceived  that  here  was  the  man  who  was  not 
afraid  of  dying — only  of  dying  before  he  had  said  all  he  had  to 
say.  He  records  Voltaire’s  famous  comparison  of  the  British 
nation  to  a hogshead  of  its  own  beer — ‘ the  top  of  which  is  froth, 
the  bottom  dregs,  the  middle  excellent.’  Moore’s  ‘ Society  and 
Manners  in  France’  contains  one  of  the  best,  if  not  the  best, 
accounts  of  Voltaire  written  from  personal  observation  by  an 
Englishman. 

In  the  midst  of  the  theatrical  gaieties  news  reached  Voltaire 
of  the  death  of  Theriot,  on  November  28,  1772.  Old  age,  that 
merciful  narcotic,  helped  to  deaden  the  blow  for  Theriot’s  old 
friend.  Also,  Theriot  had  long  been  proven  worthless,  and  he 


473 


Mt.  78-79]  THE  VINDICATION  OF  LALLY 

had  a great  many  of  Voltaire’s  letters  in  his  possession,  which 
roused  Voltaire  from  grief  to  anxiety  lest  they  should  appear 
incontinently  in  print. 

On  December  8 he  was  writing  to  d’Alembert  to  recommend 
‘ brother  La  Harpe  ’ (who  had  so  grievously  failed  him)  for  the 
post,  left  vacant  by  Theriot’s  death,  of  Parisian  correspondent  to 
Frederick  the  Great. 

At  the  end  of  1772  the  jealousy  of  foolish  Denis  made  another 
little  fracas  at  Ferney.  A girl  of  seventeen,  Mademoiselle  de 
Saussure,  the  daughter  of  a famous  doctor,  and  ‘ a very  wideawake 
little  person,’  said  Grimm,  had  the  good  fortune  to  amuse,  and 
often  visit,  a Voltaire  of  seventy-eight.  Madame  Denis,  who  dis- 
liked Mademoiselle,  not  only  for  herself,  but  as  being  a relative 
of  her  sister’s  supplanter,  the  second  Madame  Florian,  made  a 
scandal  of  the  affair. 

If  ever  that  homely  proverb,  ‘ Give  a dog  a bad  name  and 
hang  him,’  was  true  of  anybody,  it  was  certainly  true  of  Voltaire. 

It  was  wonderful  that  that  sensitive  niece  did  not  find  a cause 
of  jealousy  when,  in  the  June  of  1778,  an  old  friend,  La  Borde, 
came  back  to  Ferney,  bearing  with  him  as  a present  for  Voltaire 
the  portrait  of  Madame  Dubarry,  on  which  that  charming  and 
disreputable  lady  had  imprinted  two  kisses.  Her  favour  was 
worth  having.  Only  twenty- seven  years  old,  and  but  recently 
picked  up  from  the  gutter,  she  was  the  real  ruler  of  France.  She 
had  dismissed  Choiseul ; she  had  made  Terrai,  that  dissolute 
Controllor-General  of  Finances,  whose  ‘ edicts  fell  in  showers  ’ ; 
and  she  used  the  public  treasury  as  if  it  were  her  private  purse. 

Voltaire  knew  King  and  Court  too  well  to  neglect  such  a 
power.  Somehow,  in  Geneva  the  winters  had  been  getting  longer 
and  more  snowy  than  ever ; and  always,  in  his  mind,  was  that 
old,  old  idea  of  seeing  Paris  once  again  before  he  died.  And 
there  was  no  chance  of  a return  if  the  Omnipotent  Woman  was 
unfavourable. 

So  Voltaire  replied  with  that  happy  mixture  of  grace  and 
effrontery  for  which  his  youth  had  been  so  famous,  and  in 
September  1778,  as  has  been  noted,  he  sent  Madame  the  sweetest 
little  watch  set  in  diamonds. 

She  repaid  him  for  his  compliments — on  the  spot.  She  helped 
him  to  vindicate  General  Lally. 


474 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1773 


It  must  not  be  thought  that  statues  and  visitors,  old  age  in 
the  present,  and  death  in  a near  future,  made  Voltaire  forget  to 
fight  Vinftime , or  the  iniquitous  legal  system  which  was  often 
V inf  time's  strongest  support.  He  never  forgot  anything ; and  his 
mind  had  room  for  a thousand  interests  that  never  jostled  or  hurt 
each  other. 

In  1772  it  had  been  greatly  occupied  by  the  case  of  the 
Bombelles. 

Madame  de  Bombelles,  a Protestant,  had  the  misfortune  to  be 
the  wife  of  a French  officer  who  grew  tired  of  her,  and  in  order 
that  he  might  marry  someone  else,  discarded  his  wife  on  the 
excuse  that  they  had  been  married  by  Protestant  rites.  The 
unhappy  woman  pleaded  her  case  at  law.  It  was  decided  against 
her  ; her  marriage  declared  null  and  void  ; ordained  that  she 
should  pay  the  costs  of  the  suit ; that  her  child  should  be  educated 
as  a Catholic,  at  its  father’s  expense.  Voltaire  pleaded  long 
and  loud  against  a decision  so  shameful,  and  pleaded,  as  usual, 
as  if  the  interest  in  hand  were  the  only  one  he  had  in  the 
world. 

But  though  Vinfame  was  responsible  for  much,  the  cruelly 
unjust  justice  of  the  day  had  upon  its  guilty  soul  crimes  with 
which  Vinfame  had  nothing  to  do. 

There  had  been  the  case  of  Martin — condemned  to  the  wheel 
‘ on  an  equivocal  meaning.’  The  wretched  man,  arraigned  on  a 
wholly  unfounded  suspicion  of  murder,  when  one  of  the  witnesses 
said  that  he  did  not  recognise  him  as  the  person  he  had  seen 
escaping  from  the  scene  of  action,  cried  out,  ‘ Thank  God  ! There 
is  one  who  has  not  recognised  me  ! ’ Which  the  judge  took  to 
mean,  4 Thank  God  ! I committed  the  murder  but  have  not  been 
recognised  by  the  witness.’ 

The  real  murderer  confessed  before  long,  but  not  before 
Martin  had  been  tortured  and  broken  on  the  wheel,  his  little 
fortune  confiscated,  and  his  innocent  family  dispersed  abroad,  so 
that  they  never  even  knew  perhaps  that  their  father  was  proved 
innocent — too  late. 

Voltaire  wrote  an  account  of  the  case  to  d’Alembert.  ‘Fine 
phrases  ! Fine  phrases  ! ’ he  said  once  to  an  admirer  compliment- 
ing him  on  his  style.  ‘ I never  made  one  in  my  life  ! * He  never 
did.  He  wrote  to  make  men  act,  as  he  had  always  written  ; and 


Mt.  79] 


THE  VINDICATION  OF  LALLY 


475 


the  substance  of  his  tale  was  ever  so  great  and  so  moving  that 
the  simpler  the  form  of  it,  the  more  effective. 

In  1778  he  wrote  the  ‘Fragment  on  the  Criminal  Lawsuit  of 
the  Montbaillis.’ 

It  is  only  four  pages  long.  It  tells,  in  language  to  be  under- 
stood of  any  child,  the  story  of  a husband  and  wife,  snuff-makers 
of  St.  Omer,  who  in  July  1770  had  been  accused  of  murdering 
their  drunken  old  mother. 

The  inventive  French  temperament  concluded  that  they  must 
have  murdered  her,  because  a drunken  mother  is  a trial,  and  her 
loss  would  be  a gain.  A quarrel  they  had  had  with  her  on  the 
last  evening  of  her  life  (the  reconciliation  which  followed  was 
conveniently  forgotten)  lent  colour  to  the  theory. 

The  positive  facts  that  the  doctor,  who  was  at  once  called, 
attributed  the  old  woman’s  death  to  apoplexy ; that  she  not  only 
left  no  money  behind  her,  but  that  with  her  death  expired  the 
licence  to  make  snuff,  which  was  her  son’s  only  means  of 
livelihood  ; that  the  accused  were  known  to  have  been  patient 
and  affectionate  in  their  filial  relationship ; were  themselves  of 
quiet  and  gentle  character  ; and  that  there  was  not  a single  wit- 
ness to  the  crime  for  which  they  were  arraigned — had  no  weight 
with  either  the  populace  or  the  magistrates. 

On  November  19,  1770,  Montbailli  was  tortured  and  broken 
on  the  wheel ; and  his  wife,  aged  only  twenty-four,  was  left  in 
prison  in  irons,  awaiting  the  birth  of  her  child,  and  then  death  by 
the  hand  of  the  executioner. 

But  that  dreadful  reprieve  gave  her  relatives  time  to  appeal  to 
the  only  man  in  France  who  could  save  her. 

Voltaire  laid  the  matter  before  the  Chancellor  Maupeou.  The 
case  was  re- tried.  Both  the  Montbaillis  were  declared  innocent. 
And  that  fickle  and  dangerous  people  who  had  compassed  the 
death  of  her  husband,  and  who,  but  for  Voltaire,  would  have 
compassed  her  own,  received  back  the  wife  with  tears  of  joy. 

Voltaire  had  not  spared  himself.  If  he  wrote  briefly,  he  wrote 
often.  That  style,  so  simple  to  read,  was  not  nearly  so  simple  to 
write.  Before  things  are  made  clear  to  the  reader  they  have  to 
be  still  clearer  to  the  writer,  who  must  know  at  least  twice  as 
much  as  he  tells.  Then,  too,  every  fresh  case  brought  Voltaire 
others.  While  he  was  writing  pamphlets  for  the  Montbaillis,  he 


476 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1773 


was  also  writing  pamphlets  on  the  case  of  a certain  Comte  de 
Morangies  ; he  was  working  hard  for  young  d’Etallonde  ; he  was 
appealing  for  his  own  poor  people  of  Ferney  and  Gex  ; and  he 
was  in  the  midst  of  the  suit  for  the  vindication  of  Lally. 

General  Lally  was  a hot-headed  Irish  Jacobite,  who  had 
plotted  in  France  for  the  restoration  of  the  Stuarts,  and  who, 
when  he  was  sent  to  India  in  the  service  of  France,  had  declared 
his  policy  to  be  ‘ No  more  English  in  India.' 

A clerk  called  Clive  frustrated  that  little  plan.  Among  a 
shipload  of  French  prisoners  sent  to  England  was  General  Lally. 
England  released  him  on  parole.  He  returned  to  France — a 
country  never  noted  for  her  tenderness  to  the  unsuccessful. 
Besides  popular  indignation,  he  had  to  face  that  of  the  disappointed 
shareholders  in  the  East  India  Company,  and  the  ill-will  of  a 
government  who  supposed  the  best  way  to  appease  England 
would  be  to  maltreat  Lally. 

He  4 was  accused  of  all  crimes  ’ of  which  a man  could  be 
capable.  He  demanded  an  investigation.  4 1 bring  here  my  head 
and  my  innocence,’  he  wrote  to  Choiseul,  ‘ and  await  your  orders.’ 

He  awaited  them  for  fifteen  months  in  the  Bastille — untried. 

Then  a special  court  was  formed  of  fifteen  members  of  the 
dying  and  rotten  Parliament  of  Paris ; and  this  man,  who  had 
‘ spent  his  last  rupee  in  the  public  service,’  was  accused  of  having 
sold  Pondichery  to  his  bitterest  foes,  the  English,  and  upon  no 
fewer  than  one  hundred  and  fifty-nine  other  counts. 

In  the  teeth  of  all  testimony  the  unanimous  voice  of  those 
fifteen  judges  condemned  him  to  be  beheaded.  Surly,  churlish, 
and  embittered,  imprudent  speech  was  proven  against  him.  But 
no  worse  offence.  * He  is  the  only  man  who  has  had  his  head 
cut  off  for  being  ungracious.’  That  coward,  the  King,  shut  him- 
self up  in  Choisy,  so  that  no  petition  for  mercy  might  reach  him. 

On  May  6,  1766,  Lally,  General,  sixty-four  years  old,  and  six 
times  wounded  in  the  service  of  his  adopted  country,  was  taken, 
gagged  and  handcuffed,  to  the  Place  de  Greve  and  there  beheaded. 
The  gag  was  removed  at  the  foot  of  the  scaffold.  But  he  was 
wise  enough  to  disappoint  the  mob,  and  died  without  a word. 

‘ It  is  expedient  that  one  man  should  die  for  the  people.’ 
That  spirit  is  not  extinct  in  France  yet. 

But  if  Lally’ s innocent  blood  cried  in  vain  from  the  ground 


Mt.  79] 


THE  VINDICATION  OF  LALLY 


477 


to  King,  magistracy,  and  mob,  it  reached  old  ears  that  to  their 
last  hour  would  never  be  deaf  to  the  tale  of  wrong. 

‘ I have  the  vanity  to  think  that  God  has  made  me  for  an 
avocat,'  said  Voltaire. 

He  had  closely  followed  the  General's  trial.  His  prosecutor 
was  Pasquier,  who  had  received  a royal  pension  for  condemning 
poor  mad  Damiens  to  horrible  tortures — Pasquier,  ‘with  the 
snout  of  an  ox  and  the  heart  of  a tiger,'  and  Voltaire's  especial 
detestation. 

It  may  have  been  that  hatred  which  first  made  him  examine 
the  documents  concerning  this  trial.  Also,  he  had  met  Lally  at 
Richelieu’s,  and  worked  with  him  at  d'Argenson's. 

On  June  16,  1766,  he  wrote  to  d'Alembert,  ‘ I will  stake  my 
neck  on  it  he  was  not  a traitor ' ; and  a few  days  later,  to 
d’Argental,  ‘ It  is  my  fate  to  be  dissatisfied  with  the  sentences  of 
the  Parliament.  I dare  to  be  so  with  that  which  has  condemned 
Lally.' 

Dissatisfied  with  wrong  ? There  have  been  thousands  of  men 
good  enough  for  that,  who  have  lived  and  died  dissatisfied  with  it, 
without  lifting  a finger  to  put  right  in  its  place. 

Months  passed,  and  years.  Voltaire  inserted  in  his  6 History 
of  Louis  XV.'  an  able  exculpation  of  Lally.  It  was  something. 
But  it  was  not  enough. 

In  1769  he  wrote  that  Lally  and  his  gag,  Sirven,  Calas, 
Martin,  the  Chevalier  de  la  Barre,  came  before  him  sometimes  in 
dreams.  ‘ People  think  our  century  only  ridiculous,  but  it  is 
horrible.'  In  1778  he  wrote  that  he  still  had  on  his  heart  the 
blood  of  Lally  and  the  Chevalier  de  la  Barre. 

Still  ? For  ever  till  they  were  avenged.  He  had  read  English 
books  on  Lally’s  case.  The  English  had  had  no  reason  to  love 
Lally,  but  they  regarded  his  sentence  as  a barbarous  injustice. 

And  then,  early  in  this  year  1778,  Lally’s  young  son,  whom 
the  father  had  charged  to  avenge  his  memory,  sent  his  first 
Memoir  on  the  case  to  Voltaire  and  asked  his  assistance. 

Voltaire  had  been  very  ill — really  ill,  not  fancifully  so — with 
the  gout,  and  he  was  in  his  eightieth  year.  But  this  ‘ avocat  of 
lost  causes  ’ had  his  old  burning  zeal. 

He  first  began  by  telling  the  young  Chevalier  de  Lally- 
Tollendal,  out  of  his  abundant  experience,  and  in  a letter  dated 


478 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1773-74 


April  28,  1773,  what  to  do  and  what  not  to  do.  ‘ As  for  me,  I 
will  be  your  secretary.’  Lally-Tollendal,  then  two-and* twenty 
years  old,  had  at  fifteen  written  a Latin  poem  on  Jean  Calas.  He 
thus  already  knew  his  Voltaire.  The  King  had  paid  for  his 
education — a confession  of,  or  an  amende  for,  the  injustice  which 
had  killed  his  father.  He  was  to  be  one  of  the  aristocratic  democrats 
of  the  French  Revolution,  a refugee  in  England,  and,  in  1815,  peer 
of  France.  But  now  he  was  nothing  and  nobody,  and  alone  could 
never  have  fulfilled  his  father’s  trust. 

For  many  weeks  the  labour  of  ‘The  Historical  Fragments 
of  the  History  of  India  and  of  General  Lally  ’ occupied  Voltaire 
‘ day  and  night.’  It  cost  him,  he  told  Madame  du  Deffand,  more 
than  any  other  work  of  his  life.  It  had  to  be  amusing  in  the 
history  because  the  monkeys,  who  formed  one  half  of  the  nation, 
would  not  read  history  unless  it  was  amusing ; and  pathetic 
enough,  as  touching  General  Lally,  to  melt  the  hearts  of  the 
tigers  who  formed  the  other  half. 

Then  there  were  pamphlets  to  be  written,  and  Madame 
Dubarry  to  be  won  over.  Through  her,  Lally-Tollendal  got  his 
commission  in  the  army.  Through  Voltaire,  on  May  26,  1778, 
Louis  XVI.  in  council  publicly  vindicated  General  Lally. 

In  a room  in  the  Hotel  Villette,  at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  de 
Beaune  in  Paris,  a dying  old  Voltaire  received  that  news.  The 
splendid  intellect  which  had  served  him  for  more  than  eighty 
years,  as  never  mind  served  man  before,  was  waning  too.  But 
for  a moment  its  strength  came  back.  To  Lally-Tollendal 
Voltaire  dictated  his  last  letter. 

‘ The  dead  returns  to  life  on  learning  this  great  news  ; he 
tenderly  embraces  M.  Lally  ; he  sees  that  the  King  is  the  Defender 
of  Justice;  and  will  die,  content.’ 

With  a last  flash  of  his  old  spirit,  he  made  someone  write 
in  a large  hand,  on  a sheet  of  paper  which  he  had  pinned  to  the 
bed  hangings  where  everyone  could  see  it,  the  following  words : 

‘ On  May  26  the  judicial  murder  committed  by  Pasquier 
(Councillor  to  the  Parliament)  upon  the  person  of  Lally  was 
avenged  by  the  Council  of  the  King.* 

If  ever  man  carried  into  the  other  life  the  hatred  of  that 
oppression  and  injustice  which  have  made  the  wretchedness  of  this 
to  more  than  half  the  human  race,  surely  that  man  was  Voltaire. 


Mt.  79—80] 


479 


CHAPTER  XLII 

LATTER  DAYS 

Voltaire’s  old  age  was  naturally  something  less  eventful  than 
the  ‘ crowded  hour  ’ of  his  youth  and  manhood.  But  if  ever  his 
private  life  afforded  him  a chance  of  quiet,  public  events  always 
stepped  in  to  disturb  it. 

On  May  10,  1774,  Louis  XV.  died  of  the  smallpox,  to  the 
good  and  blessing  of  the  world.  His  old  courtier  at  Ferney  no 
sooner  heard  the  news  than  he  put  pen  to  paper  and  wrote 
his  Majesty’s  Eloge , * to  be  pronounced  before  an  Academy  on 
May  25.’ 

Of  course  a eulogy  had  to  be  eulogistic.  The  old  hand  had 
not  lost  its  cunning.  To  flatter  the  dear  departed,  to  speak  of 
him  as  a good  father,  a good  husband  and  master,  and  ‘ as  much 
a friend  as  a king  can  be  ’ ; to  offer  for  his  little  failings  that 
courtly  excuse,  ‘ One  cannot  be  always  a king  : one  would  be  too 
much  to  be  pitied,’  and  to  imply  that  the  man  was  a fool  so  that 
the  insult  sounded  like  a compliment,  why,  Voltaire  was  the  one 
writer  in  the  world  who  could  do  it.  And  he  did  it. 

He  turned  the  occasion  to  practical  use,  by  preaching  against 
the  neglect  of  inoculation ; and  then  looked  to  the  future. 

What  wonder  that,  for  the  moment,  even  this  prophet  should 
forget  to  prophesy  Revolution  ; should  think  that  he  saw  already 
the  beginning  of  the  Golden  Age — Millennium — all  things  made 
new? 

To  be  sure,  he  told  the  government  plainly  that  there  were 
still  Frenchmen  who  were  ‘in  the  same  legal  condition  as  the 
beasts  of  that  land  they  watered  with  their  tears.’  And  the 
young  King  answered  by  repealing  the  Tax  of  the  Joyful  Acces- 
sion ; by  disgracing  Terrai,  for  whom  old  Ferney  was  keeping  his 
last  tooth ; by  appointing  first  as  Minister  of  Finance,  then  as 


480 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1775 


Controller- General,  and  then  as  Secretary  of  State,  the  great 
reforming  Turgot,  one  of  the  most  enlightened  men  in  France 
and  already  the  personal  friend  of  Voltaire.  ‘ If  any  man  can 
re-establish  the  finances,’  wrote  Ferney  on  September  7,  ‘ he  is 
the  man.’  And  a few  days  later,  when  Turgot  obtained  free 
trade  in  grain,  the  enthusiastic  old  invalid  thanked  Nature  for 
having  made  him  live  long  enough  to  see  that  day.  Free  trade 
in  grain  had  a very  personal  application  to  this  master  of  a town, 
this  founder  of  a colony.  He  had  d’Etallonde  staying  with  him 
now  ; and  next  to  his  arduous  and  passionate  work  for  the  restitu- 
tion of  that  young  officer’s  civil  rights  (‘  he  is  calm  about  his 
fate,  and  I — I die  of  it  ’),  his  four  hundred  children  had  the 
largest  share  of  his  mind.  That  they  returned  his  affection  and 
repaid  him  as  they  could,  was  proved  when,  on  Madame  Denis’s 
recovery  from  a dangerous  chest  complaint  in  the  spring  of  1775, 
they  feted  that  ‘ niece  of  her  uncle  ’ 4 with  companies  of  infantry 
and  cavalry,  cockades  and  kettledrums  ’ — all  the  mummery  and 
millinery  which  they  loved,  and  their  master  had  loved  all  his 
life. 

Madame  Denis  was,  it  must  be  remembered,  already  the  legal 
owner  of  Ferney.  She  was  to  be  its  practical  owner.  And  it 
was  her  old  uncle’s  too  sanguine  hope  that  she  would  maintain 
the  manufactory  after  him.  She  was  certainly  pleased  at  the 
colonists’  rejoicings,  and  the  colonists  were  pleased  themselves, 
and  Voltaire  was  highly  delighted ; and  a quite  cool  observer, 
Hennin,  the  Resident,  noted  that  it  was  a grand  thing  to  see 
a cavalcade  of  nearly  a hundred  men,  mounted  and  in  uniform, 
from  a village  where,  twelve  years  before,  there  were  twenty 
families  of  wretched  peasants. 

So  that,  although  the  year  1775,  which  was  to  usher  into 
Ferney  such  a succession  of  visitors  as  might  make  the  most 
sociable  heart  quail  began  with  sickness,  it  began  with  rejoicing 
too. 

D’Etallonde  was  still  staying  there.  Nephew  d’Hornoy  was 
helping  Voltaire  to  work  his  case.  The  Marquis  and  Marquise 
de  Luchet  came  to  join  the  party  in  the  spring,  and  were  here 
two  months — the  Marquis,  who  was  to  be  one  of  Voltaire’s  bio- 
graphers, always  engaged  in  mad  schemes  for  making  money  out 
of  gold  mines  ; and  the  Marquise  turning  her  goodnatured  and 


JEt.  81] 


LATTER  DAYS 


481 


laughter-loving  self  into  a hospital  nurse  and  nursing  the  Ferney 
invalids  unremittingly. 

Then  came  the  Florians ; and  the  Marquis's  third  wife 
brought  with  her  another  lively  visitor,  her  young  sister,  whom 
Voltaire  called  ‘ Quinze  Ans,’  ‘who  laughed  at  everything  and 
laughed  always.' 

They  were  followed  by  ecstatic  little  Madame  Suard,  who 
worshipped  Voltaire  with  the  tiresome  adoration  of  a schoolgirl ; 
kissed  his  hands  and  clasped  her  own  ; flattered,  adored,  and 
coquetted  with  him  ; and  went  so  far  as  to  declare  in  the  long 
and  rapturous  accounts  she  wrote  of  him,  that  his  every  wrinkle 
was  a charm. 

With  her  came  her  brother,  Panckoucke,  who  wanted  to  edit 
Voltaire's  works,  but  did  not  yet  obtain  that  favour.  She  also 
found  with  Voltaire,  Audibert,  that  merchant  of  Marseilles,  the 
earliest  friend  of  the  Calas  ; and  Poissonnier,  Catherine  the  Great’s 
doctor. 

In  July,  Chabanon,  and  Abbe  Morellet  were  both  staying 
at  Ferney.  Also  in  July,  an  audacious  and  wholly  unsnubbable 
person  called  Denon  had  forced  his  way  there  too ; asked  for  his 
host’s  bust ; was  refused ; and  revenged  himself  by  sending  the 
poor  old  Patriarch  a most  hideous  sketch  of  his  lean  features 
which  he,  Denon,  had  made  himself.  It  was  very  far  from  being 
the  only  offensive  likeness  of  the  great  man.  Still  extant  is 
a caricature  called  ‘Dejeuner  at  Ferney,'  which  Voltaire  used  to 
think  was  by  Huber,  and  which  contains  grotesque  portraits  of 
Voltaire  and  Father  Adam,  and  represents  poor  Madame  Denis, 
who  was  inclined  to  embonpoint , enormously  fat.  But,  after  all, 
it  was  in  the  January  of  this  1775  that  Frederick  had  sent 
Voltaire,  Voltaire’s  bust  in  porcelain  with  Immortali  written 
beneath  it.  Here  was  compensation  for  many  caricatures. 

Little  Madame  Saint- Julien,  who  had  made  Ferney  lace  the 
mode,  and  was  a fashionable  philanthropist  when  philanthropy 
was  not  the  fashion,  paid  another  long  visit  to  Ferney  in  the 
autumn,  and  went  back  to  Paris  to  intercede  with  her  influential 
relatives  for  Voltaire’s  children.  She  and  their  father  were  so 
successful  that  the  day  soon  came  when,  ‘ in  spite  of  the  obstinate 
resistance  of  the  farmers-general,’  they  obtained  for  the  colonists 
that  ‘ moderate  and  fixed  tariff  which  freed  the  country  from  the 


482 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1776 


despotism  of  a pitiless  tax,’  extorting  from  the  poverty-stricken 
province  of  Gex  alone  the  exorbitant  sum  of  not  less  than  forty 
thousand  livres  annually. 

The  grateful  colonists  had  fireworks  and  illuminations  on 
that  good  Butterfly’s  birthday ; and  in  December  they  feted  old 
Voltaire  himself,  filled  his  carriage  with  flowers,  and  decorated 
the  horses  with  laurels. 

The  visitors  did  not  cease  with  the  new  year  1776.  Nay,  one 
came  who  came  to  stay.  Mademoiselle  Reine-Philiberte  de  Vari- 
court  was  the  niece  of  those  six  poor  gentlemen  whose  estates 
Voltaire  had  reclaimed  in  1761  from  the  Jesuits  of  Ornex. 
Bright,  honest,  and  good,  well  deserving  that  charming  name  of 
Belle-et-Bonne  with  which  old  Voltaire  immediately  christened  her, 
the  unfortunate  girl  had  no  dot  and  was  destined  to  a convent. 

But  Madame  Denis  took  one  of  her  goodnatured  likings  to 
her.  She  was  girlishly  kind  to  old  Voltaire,  while  he  on  his  part 
soon  worshipped  her  pretty  face,  virgin  heart,  and  bright  intelli- 
gence. No  * narrowing  nunnery  walls  ’ for  her  ! Marie  Dupuits 
had  husband  and  child  to  think  of  now,  and  Marie  had  never  had 
Reine-Philiberte’s  dignified  good  sense. 

Belle-et-Bonne  fell  into  place  at  once.  She  became  a regular, 
and  not  the  least  delightful,  member  of  the  heterogeneous  Ferney 
household. 

Another  Englishman,  Martin  Sherlock,  visited  it  in  April  1776, 
and  wrote  his  experiences,  in  his  4 Letters  of  an  English  Traveller/ 
in  French,  which  has  been  retranslated  into  his  native  tongue. 

Voltaire,  who  was  accompanied  by  d’Hornoy,  met  his  guest 
in  the  hall,  showed  him  his  gardens,  spoke  a few  words  to  him  in 
English,  told  an  anecdote  of  Swift,  talked  of  Pope,  of  Chesterfield, 
of  Hervey,  and  with  his  old  passionate  admiration  of  Newton. 
Stopping  before  his  bust,  he  exclaimed,  ‘ This  is  the  greatest 
genius  that  ever  existed ! ’ There  was  no  dimming  of  the  old 
mind,  no  lacklustre,  no  weariness.  The  England  he  had  not 
seen  for  nearly  fifty  years  was  still  a vivid  and  a present  reality. 

On  one  of  his  visits — Sherlock  paid  two — Voltaire  showed 
his  guest  his  shelves  filled  with  English  books — Robertson,  ‘ who 
is  your  Livy  ’ ; Hume,  ‘ who  wrote  history  to  be  applauded  ’ ; 
Bolingbroke,  ‘ many  leaves  and  little  fruit  ’ ; Milton,  Congreve, 
Rochester. 


VOLTAIRE. 

From  the  Etching  by  Denon. 


Mt.  82] 


LATTER  BAYS 


488 


He  criticised  the  English  language — 4 energetic,  precise,  and 
barbarous.’  He  explained  to  Madame  Denis  the  scene  in  Shake- 
speare’s ‘Henry  V.’  where  the  King  makes  love  to  Katharine  in 
bad  French.  He  spoke  ‘ with  the  warmth  of  a man  of  thirty.’ 

Quaintly  dressed  in  white  shoes  and  stockings,  red  breeches, 
embroidered  waistcoat  and  bedgown,  and  a gold  and  silver  night- 
cap over  his  grey  peruke,  old  Voltaire  apologised  for  this  singular 
appearance  to  his  guest  by  saying  in  English  that  at  Ferney  they 
were  for  Liberty  and  Property.  ‘ So  that  I wear  my  nightcap 
and  Father  Adam  his  hat.’  Later,  he  added  gravely,  ‘ You  are 
happy,  you  can  do  anything.  ...  We  cannot  even  die  as  we 
will.’ 

During  the  conversation  he  had  uttered  what  his  visitor  called 
‘ horrors  ’ about  Moses  and  Shakespeare. 

Nothing  proves  better  the  young  vigour  of  this  marvellous  old 
mind  than  the  strength  of  its  animosities.  The  ‘ let-it-alone  ’ 
spirit  of  old  age  was  never  this  man’s  while  there  was  breath  left 
in  his  body.  At  the  end  of  1778  he  had  attacked  another  literary 
foe — an  ungrateful  protege,  ‘ the  inclement  Clement  ’ — in  the 
‘ Cabals,’  a satire  in  which  ring  out  clearly  the  notes  a younger 
hand  had  struck  in  ‘ Akakia  ’ or  in  ‘ Vanity.’ 

Then  on  March  10,  1776,  Freron  died  of  mortification  at  the 
suppression  of  his  ‘Literary  Year,’  and  up  gets  Voltaire  and  says 
he  has  received  an  anonymous  letter  asking  him,  if  you  please,  to 
endow  Frelon-Freron’s  daughter ! This  is  too  much.  Voltaire 
suggests  that  Madame  Freron  wrote  that  letter.  And  the  Frelons 
say  Voltaire  invented  it  himself.  And  Voltaire  is  as  spry  and 
alert  and  angry  as  when  he  first  hated  Freron,  thirty  years  ago. 

But  these  enemies  he  knew,  or  had  known,  in  the  flesh. 

To  admire  or  to  despise  Shakespeare  was  but  a literary  ques- 
tion. Old  Eighty-two  in  this  July  of  1776  took  it  as  a burning 
personal  one.  He  had  not  precisely  adored  Shakespeare  in  the 
‘ English  Letters.’  A barbarian,  a monster — but  of  very  great 
genius.  For  the  sake  of  that  genius  he  had  permitted  the  polished 
French  people  to  condone  that  ‘ heavy  grossness  ’ and  the  shock- 
ing lack  of  taste ; and  in  his  famous  criticism  on  ‘ Hamlet,’ 
written  in  1748,  though  he  had  called  its  author  ‘a  drunken 
savage,’  he  had  found  in  the  play,  not  the  less,  ‘ sublime  touches 
worthy  of  the  loftiest  genius.’  To  Sherlock,  but  three  months 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


484 


[1776 


ago,  though  he  had  uttered  4 horrors  ' in  his  criticism,  he  had 
admitted  that  4 amazing  genius  ’ again. 

And  now  one  Letourneur  publishes  a new  translation  of  the 
great  William,  and  takes  upon  himself  to  call  him  the  4 god  of 
the  theatre,'  the  only  model  for  true  tragedy ; and  ignores 
Corneille  and  Racine  (to  say  nothing  of  the  author  of  4 Zaire  ’) 
in  toto. 

Then  Voltaire  beat  his  breast  and  tore  his  hair  to  think  that 
it  was  I — I — who  showed  to  the  French  the  pearls  in  this  English 
dunghill ; that  I suffered  persecution  for  telling  them  that  though 
the  god  had  feet  of  clay,  the  head  and  heart  were  gold. 

So  in  a rage  M.  de  Voltaire  sat  down  and  wrote  a letter  to 
the  Academy — 4 his  factotum  against  Shakespeare  ’ ; gave  himself 
the  lie ; literally  translated  many  passages,  knowing,  as  he  had 
said  himself,  that  in  a translation  the  letter  killeth  and  the  spirit 
giveth  life ; presented,  as  he  meant  to  do,  a gross  and  coarse 
Shakespeare,  an  indecent  buffoon  who  had  4 ruined  the  taste  of 
England  for  two  hundred  years.'  Various  persons  rushed  into 
the  fray  on  either  side. 

On  August  25,  Voltaire’s  letter  was  read  at  a public  meeting 
at  the  Academy,  and  a goodnatured  Marquis  de  Villevieille  gal- 
loped off  post-haste  to  Ferney  to  tell  of  its  success.  But  there 
had  been  dissentient  voices.  Anglomania  was  already  a power 
in  the  land.  The  young  Queen  had  her  Crawfords  and  Dillons, 
her  English  garden,  her  English  jockeys,  her  English  4biliard.' 
D’Alembert  was  too  cool,  too  cool ! The  untrammelled  nature  of 
the  great  Diderot  was  formed  to  appreciate  the  broad  and  daring 
genius  of  the  great  Englishman.  And  Madame  Necker,  with  the 
sure  instincts  of  a clever  woman,  criticised  Voltaire’s  letter  in  a 
letter  to  Garrick.  Voltaire  had  but  shown  Shakespeare’s  dead 
body — 4 But  I — I have  seen  the  soul  animating  it,  and  know  it  is 
something  more  even  than  a majestic  ghost  which  Garrick,  the 
enchanter,  summons  from  the  grave.’ 

The  letter  to  the  Academy  was  the  last  utterance  on  the  great 
Englishman  of  the  man  who — whether  he  hotly  regretted  it,  as 
he  did  now  and  in  the  famous  Preface  to  4 Semiramis,’  or  was,  or 
said  he  was,  proud  of  it,  as  when  he  wrote  to  Walpole — first 
revealed  Shakespeare  to  the  people  of  France. 

August  saw  the  arrival  of  a visitor  who  was  hereafter  herself 


Mt.  82] 


LATTEE  DAYS 


485 


to  be  a celebrity,  Madame  de  Genlis.  Now  only  thirty  years  old, 
she  was  not  yet  famous  for  her  literary  works  or  that  grave  and 
religious  turn  of  mind  which  did  not  prevent  her  occupying  the 
very  equivocal  position  of  gouvernante  to  the  children  of  the 
Duke  of  Orleans.  As  Madame  Suard  came  to  Ferney  prepared 
to  go  into  raptures,  so  Madame  Genlis  came  prepared  to  dis- 
approve. 

The  serious  lady  carried  out  her  intention  as  thoroughly  as 
the  frivolous  one.  Her  account  of  her  visit  contains  much  more 
about  herself  than  about  Voltaire,  but  states,  no  doubt  very  truly, 
that  the  impiety  of  his  conversation  was  shocking,  and,  certainly 
untruly,  that  his  manners  lacked  tact  and  urbanity.  For  this 
too  particular  lady  the  very  trees  in  the  Ferney  garden  grew  too 
low  and  upset  her  temper  and  her  hair  ; while  the  wild  enthusiasm 
for  their  host  of  her  companion,  a painter,  M.  Ott,  quite  distressed 
a person  who  had  so  firmly  resolved  not  to  make  a fool  of  herself 
in  that  direction. 

As  her  point  of  view  was  unfavourable,  her  testimony  as  to 
her  host’s  ‘ ingenuous  goodness  ’ to  his  colonists,  to  the  perfect 
modesty  and  simplicity  with  which  he  regarded  his  great  work 
for  them,  is  the  more  valuable.  She  confirmed  the  opinion  of 
many  others  as  to  the  piercing  brilliancy  of  the  old  eyes — 4 which 
have  in  them  an  inexpressible  sweetness.’  Madame  Saint- Julien 
was  there  at  the  same  time — little  and  gay  and  kind — and  pre- 
sently Marie  Dupuits’  little  girl  ran  into  the  room  and  put  her 
arms  round  Grandpapa  Voltaire’s  neck. 

During  this  August,  Voltaire,  rather  proud  of  the  transaction, 
‘ borrowed  Lekain,’  who  was  acting  at  Court,  from  Marie 
Antoinette.  The  Hermit  of  Ferney  was  too  toothless  to  act  him- 
self, but  his  earliest  passion  was  also  his  latest.  There  was  the 
most  charming  little  theatre  in  the  village  of  Ferney  now.  Lekain 
acted  in  that  and  at  Chatelaine.  The  young  Queen’s  graciousness 
in  lending  her  player  made  artful  old  Voltaire  long  to  have 
‘ Olympie  ’ acted  before  her ; to  have  her  for  his  protectress  ; to 
see  with  his  own  eyes  4 her  whose  least  charm,’  as  he  said,  ‘was 
loveliness.’ 

Picture  the  delight  of  the  whilom  author  of  ‘ The  Princess  of 
Navarre  ’ when  he  was  commissioned  to  write  a divertissement 
for  her  benefit.  He  wrote,  or  rather  reproduced  a sketch  of  a 


486 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1776-77 


fete  given  at  Vienna  by  the  Austrian  Court  sixty  years  before, 
and  called  it  ‘ The  Host  and  Hostess.’  The  thing  was  meritless, 
but  not  objectless,  though  it  failed  in  its  object — the  rapproche- 
ment of  Ferney  and  Versailles. 

Then  M.  de  Voltaire  must  needs  write  an  allegory,  * Sesostris,’ 
to  flatter  the  beaux  yeux  of  the  Queen,  and  to  show  what  a King 
might  do  for  the  good  of  his  people. 

To  the  year  1776,  besides  the  Battle  of  Shakespeare,  belong 
two  more  fights — the  last  of  Voltaire’s  life.  Beauregard,  Rohan, 
Jore — how  far  they  were  away ! But  the  spirit  of  their  old 
antagonist  had  not  waxed  faint. 

The  first  fight  was  only  a skirmish,  it  is  true.  Father  Adam 
had  been  spoilt,  of  course.  From  being  an  inoffensive,  lazy 
person — ‘ the  only  idler  in  a houseful  of  busy  people  ’ — he  had 
become  assertive,  worrying,  and  quarrelsome.  He  had  fallen  out 
with  Bigex,  the  copyist,  in  1769  ; and  as  a result  Bigex  had  had 
to  leave.  And  now  the  Father  must  go  himself.  It  was  charac- 
teristic of  the  man  who  had  allowed  Jore  a pension  for  life,  that 
he  should  send  after  this  ungrateful  priest  who  owed  him  thirteen 
years’  hospitality,  presents  of  money. 

In  the  second  fight,  the  very  last  of  his  life,  occurring  in  the 
December  of  1776,  Voltaire  matched  steel  with  a worthier  foe. 
It  was  in  answer  to  an  attack  made  upon  him  by  an  Abbe  Guenee 
that  he  wrote  the  bold  and  brilliant,  if  neither  deep  nor  sound, 
‘ Christian  against  Six  Jews,’  which  advanced  Pigalle’s  evidence 
on  the  subject  of  the  Golden  Calf,  and  might  have  better  confuted 
Guenee  if  that  reasoner  had  not  been  on  his  own  ground  and 
most  cool  and  subtle  in  argument. 

But  if  his  foes  did  not  spare  this  old  Voltaire,  neither  did  his 
friends.  In  the  early  days  of  1777  Moultou  introduced  at  Ferney 
a wearisome  playwright  called  Berthe,  who  would  persist  in  read- 
ing aloud  his  tedious  play  to  their  host.  ‘ Here  the  Chevalier 
laughs,’  read  Berthe,  as  a stage  direction.  ‘ Happy  man  ! ’ 
murmured  Voltaire.  When  the  listener  could  bear  it  no  longer, 
he  feigned  the  most  violent  colic  that  ever  man  had  suffered. 
The  next  day  Berthe  came  again,  and  so  did  the  colic.  4 If  God 
had  not  come  to  my  aid,’  said  Voltaire  to  Grimm,  ‘ I should  have 
been  lost.’ 

It  was  in  1777  that  Voltaire  amused  himself  by  competing, 


Mt.  82-83] 


LATTER  DAYS 


487 


under  a pseudonym,  for  a prize  offered  by  the  French  Academy 
for  the  best  translation  of  the  sixth  book  of  the  ‘ Iliad.’  It 
did  not  gain  a prize.  It  was  not  even  good.  But  that  such  a 
man  at  such  an  age  should  have  been  ‘ sleeplessly  active  * enough 
to  enter  into  such  a competition,  makes  the  thing  worth 
recording. 

But  worse  than  unsuccessful  translations  and  dull  plays, 
worse  than  being  beaten  in  a verbal  quibble  with  a priest,  was  a 
mortification  this  vain  old  heart  received  in  the  June  of  1777. 

Joseph  II.,  the  young  Emperor  of  Austria,  brother  of  Marie 
Antoinette,  and  himself  something  of  a philosopher,  had  been 
the  lion  of  the  spring  in  Paris.  It  was  confidently  expected  by 
d’Alembert,  Frederick  the  Great — everyone,  including  Voltaire 
himself — that  on  his  return  home  the  celebrity  would  do  what  all 
celebrities  did — visit  the  King  of  their  kind  at  Ferney. 

On  June  27  Voltaire  wrote  airily  to  say  that  he  did  not  expect 
his  Majesty.  What  in  the  world  was  there  for  him  to  see  in  this 
manufactory  of  watches  and  verses  ? But  all  the  same,  when  the 
day  came,  Ferney  rose  up  very  early  in  the  morning  and  from 
eight  o’clock  was  ready  in  its  best  clothes,  with  its  master  in  his 
great  peruke,  waiting.  A splendid  dinner  had  been  prepared. 
The  condition  of  the  road  from  Ferney  to  Versoix  had  been 
improved  by  its  owner.  All  was  in  readiness. 

Presently  the  sound  of  the  rumbling  of  the  travelling  carriage 
is  heard  in  the  distance.  If  his  Majesty  had  not  meant  to  call  at 
the  chateau,  why  choose  this  route  ? There  were  others.  ‘ This 
is  Ferney  ! ’ says  the  coachman.  4 Whip  up  the  horses  ! ’ cries 
the  Emperor.  And  the  imperial  cortege  dashes  through  Ferney, 
and  past  the  windows  of  the  expectant  chateau  itself,  at  a gallop. 
When  it  is  added  that  his  Majesty  alighted  at  Versoix  and 
examined  that  infant  colony,  and  that  when  he  reached  Berne  he 
paid  a special  visit  to  Voltaire’s  great  rival,  Haller,  it  will  be  seen 
that  he  meant  to  offend. 

It  is  to  the  credit  of  a plucky  old  heart  that  Voltaire  quite 
refused  to  acknowledge  himself  snubbed,  pointed  out  that  he  had 
always  said  his  Majesty  would  not  come,  and  that  4 my  age  and 
maladies  prevented  me  from  finding  myself  on  his  route.’  But 
if  he  swallowed  it  with  a smile,  the  pill  was  a bitter  one  not 
the  less.  ‘ This  disgrace  ’ the  poor  old  man  called  it,  writing  in 


488 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1777 


confidence  to  his  Angel.  But  the  ‘ disgrace,*  if  any,  was  not 
Voltaire’s,  but  the  man’s  who,  privately  confessing  himself  a 
philosopher,  was  afraid  to  visit  Voltaire  lest  he  should  be  openly 
accounted  one,  and  offend  an  austere  mother. 

The  Emperor’s  neglected  visit  was  the  last  mortification  of 
the  man  who  had  had  many,  and  had  felt  all  with  an  extraordinary 
sensitiveness. 

But,  after  all,  ‘ the  end  of  all  ambition  is  to  be  happy  at 
home,’  and  Voltaire  had  many  consolations. 

The  good,  fat,  Swiss  servant,  Barbara,  was  one.  Voltaire  was 
at  last  learning  a little  how  to  grow  old,  and  now  went  to  bed  at 
ten  and  slept  till  five,  when  Baba  would  bring  him  his  coffee. 
One  day  he  took  it  into  his  head  to  mix  some  rosewater  with  it, 
as  an  experiment.  The  result  was  an  acute  indigestion.  He 
rang  the  bell  violently.  Enter  Baba.  4 1 am  in  the  agonies  of 
death.  I put  some  rosewater  in  my  coffee  and  am  dying  of  it.’ 

4 Sir,’  says  the  indignant  Baba,  ‘ with  all  your  cleverness  you  are 
sillier  than  your  own  turkeys.’ 

But  nearer  and  dearer  than  a Baba  could  be  was  Belle-et- 
Bonne.  By  this  time  she  had  become  like  the  old  man’s  daughter. 
With  rare  tact  she  had  succeeded  in  endearing  herself  to  him 
without  offending  Madame  Denis.  She  would  arrange  his  papers 
for  him,  and  keep  the  desk  which  hung  over  his  bed,  and  4 which 
he  could  lower  or  raise  at  pleasure,’  in  that  order  and  neatness 
his  soul  loved. 

‘ Good  morning,  belle  nature ,’  he  would  say  when  she  greeted 
him  in  the  morning  ; and  when  she  kissed  his  old  parchment 
face  would  declare  it  was  Life  kissing  Death.  It  was  Belle-et- 
Bonne  who  could  soothe  his  irritability  or  impatience — ‘ You  put 
me  on  good  terms  with  life.’ 

And  it  was  Voltaire  of  eighty- three  who  taught  Mademoiselle 
Reine-Philiberte  de  Varicourt  how  to  dance. 

In  the  summer  of  this  1777  there  arrived  unexpectedly  one 
day  at  Ferney  a worn-out  roue  of  a Marquis  de  Villette,  who  had 
passed  two  or  three  months  here  in  1765,  and  with  whom  Voltaire 
had  since  corresponded.  Rich,  gallant,  well  born,  a society  verse- 
maker,  this  ‘ ne’er-do-weel  of  good  company  ’ was  the  sort  of 
person  who  sounds  attractive  on  paper,  and  in  real  life  is  wholly 
objectionable.  Voltaire — Voltaire  ! — had  tendered  him  moral 


^Et.  83] 


LATTEE  DAYS 


489 


advice  and  urged  him  to  reform.  He  had  known  the  young 
man’s  mother — herself  a woman  of  irregular  morals — and  from 
these  two  facts  arose  an  entirely  unfounded  scandal,  that  Voltaire 
was  Villette’s  father. 

He  was  soon  to  be  a sort  of  father-in-law.  Villette,  now  some 
forty  years  old,  and  having  run  away  from  an  intrigue  and  a duel 
in  Paris,  met  Belle-et-Bonne  at  Ferney ; saw  her  walking  in  the 
procession  of  the  fete  of  St.  Francis  (always  kept  enthusiastically 
by  the  colony  of  Francis  Marie  Arouet),  with  flowers  at  her 
breast,  a basket  with  doves  in  it  in  her  hand,  and  her  face  bright, 
beautiful,  and  blushing. 

What  was  there  to  do  but  to  fall  in  love  with  her  ? Wagniere, 
who  hated  Villette,  said  that  he  played  fast  and  loose  with 
Mademoiselle  for  three  months.  However  that  may  have  been, 
Voltaire  approved  of  his  suit.  To  be  sure,  Belle-et-Bonne  was  too 
good  for  him.  But  she  had  no  dot — if  a pretty  face,  an  innocent 
heart,  youth,  dignity,  and  intelligence  count  for  nothing — so  she 
would  have  no  choice.  And  any  husband  is  better  than  none — 
when  none  means  a convent.  Enfin , where  to  find  a French 
marquis  of  stainless  reputation  in  the  eighteenth  century  ? It 
was  said  that  Voltaire  had  offered  Villette  a dot  with  his  wife, 
and  the  disinterested  Villette  had  refused  it.  And  if  that  is  not 
a sign  of  reformation — what  is  ? ’ 

So  in  November  1777  Mademoiselle  de  Varicourt  was  married 
in  the  Ferney  chapel  at  midnight,  with  her  six  uncles  preceding 
her  up  the  aisle,  and  Papa  Voltaire,  in  Catherine’s  sable  pelisse, 
to  give  her  away. 

The  young  couple  spent  the  honeymoon  at  Ferney,  and 
through  it  Voltaire  was  working  at  his  two  last  plays,  ‘ Irene  ’ 
and  4 Agathocle.’ 

It  is  marvellous,  not  so  much  that  a man  of  eighty-three 
should  write  bad  plays,  as  that  he  should  write  any. 

No  wonder  that  the  new  tragedy,  ‘ Irene,’  went  ill  at  first. 
And  not  so  very  wonderful  that  the  old  playwright  should  follow 
his  immemorial  habit  and  rewrite  till  it  satisfied  him.  He  lost 
three  months  over  it.  And,  as  he  remarked  most  truly,  ‘ Time  is 
precious  at  my  age.* 

So  when  ‘ Irene  ’ was  impossible  he  turned  to  4 Agathocle.’ 

Madame  Denis’s  easy  tears  and  laughter  over  the  two  pieces 


490 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1778 


were  no  sound  criticism.  Villette  and  Villevieille,  then  staying 
at  Ferney,  admired  politely  as  visitors.  The  playwright,  whose 
vanity  has  been  excellently  defined  as  ‘ a gay  and  eager  asking  of 
assurance  from  others  that  his  work  gave  them  pleasure/  was  de- 
lighted with  the  compliments.  But  he  accepted  correction  in  that 
spirit  which  showed  that  his  vanity  ‘ never  stood  in  the  way  of 
self-knowledge.' 

‘ If  I had  committed  a fault  at  a hundred,'  he  said,  4 1 should 
want  to  correct  it  at  a hundred-and-one.'  So  when  Condorcet, 
more  honest  than  the  visitors,  paid  him  the  finer  compliment  of 
assuring  him  that  such  work  as  he  had  produced  in  ‘ Irene ' 
was  not  worthy  of  his  genius,  he  took  that  assurance  in  excellent 
part ; and  though  by  January  2,  1778,  ‘ Irene ' had  been  read 
and  welcomed  by  the  Comedie  Fra-ngaise,  he  went  on  correcting 
and  altering  it  to  the  end  of  the  month. 

He  was  spurred  to  do  his  best  by  the  fact  that  Lekain  declined 
to  play  the  role  written  for  him.  No  letters  could  have  been 
kinder,  wiser,  or  more  conciliatory  than  those  his  old  host  and 
friend  wrote  to  the  great  player. 

The  part  should  be  rewritten  for  him  ! 

He  was  also  spurred  to  do  his  best  by  the  fact  that  ‘ Irene ' 
was  to  be  the  means,  the  excuse,  the  reason  to  take  him  to 
Paris. 

Paris ! The  idea  had  been  simmering  long.  Paris ! It 
was  twenty-eight  years  since  he  had  left  it,  for  a few  months  at 
the  most.  To  be  sure,  he  had  been  far  happier  at  Ferney  than  in 
the  riot  and  fever  of  that  over-rated  capital.  In  answer  to  those 
who  talked  about  the  stagnation  of  the  country,  and  talked  of  it 
as  if  it  were  some  narcotic  trance  which  numbed  brain  and  use, 
Voltaire  could  point  to  the  best  work  of  his  life.  Near  him,  bound 
to  his  heart  by  many  cords,  was  the  smiling  cosmos  of  the  indus- 
trial Ferney  which  he  had  drawn  from  the  chaos  of  a barren  and 
starving  province.  Here  were  his  gardens  and  farms  ; the  house 
he  had  built,  and  loved  as  one  can  only  love  the  work  of  one’s 
own  brain  ; the  books  and  pictures  he  had  collected  ; the  thousand 
household  gods  from  which  the  young  part  easily,  but  which  the 
old  regard  with  a personal  affection. 

Then,  Ferney  was  safe.  And  in  Paris — 4 Do  you  not  know  there 
are  forty  thousand  fanatics  who  would  bring  forty  thousand 


Mt.  84] 


LATTER  DAYS 


491 


fagots  to  burn  me?  That  would  be  my  bed  of  honour.’  If 
Louis  XV.  was  dead,  so  was  a friendly  Pompadour.  Choiseul 
and  Madame  Dubarry  were  banished. 

Good  Louis  XVI.  hated  this  infidel  of  a Voltaire,  and  was 
just  shrewd  enough  in  his  dulness  to  fear  him.  It  was  Louis, 
still  a king,  who,  asked  what  play  should  be  performed  at  the 
theatre,  replied,  ‘Anything,  so  long  as  it  is  not  Voltaire.’  It 
was  Louis  Capet  in  the  Temple  who  is  reported  to  have  said, 
pointing  to  the  works  of  Rousseau  and  Voltaire  in  the  library  of 
the  tower,  ‘ Those  two  men  have  lost  France.’ 

The  brilliant  Queen,  who  had  permitted  M.  de  Voltaire  to 
write  her  a divertissement  and  to  steal  Lekain,  was  something  more 
favourable.  But  the  Queen — extravagant  and  childless — was  the 
most  unpopular  woman  in  France.  In  1776  she  had  compassed 
the  fall  of  Turgot,  Voltaire’s  friend,  the  hope  of  his  country.  In 
Paris,  now,  there  was  but  one  minister  who  was  even  tepidly 
favourable  to  the  great  recluse  of  Ferney,  and  that  was  Maurepas. 

Altogether,  the  time  seemed  hardly  ripe.  But  ‘ if  I want  to 
commit  a folly,’  Voltaire  had  written  to  Chabanon  in  1775, 
‘ nothing  will  prevent  me.’ 

If  a king  had  once  been  too  strong  for  Voltaire,  he  may  well 
have  known  now  that  he  was  stronger  than  any  king.  Besides, 
he  had  never  been  formally  banished.  ‘ I do  not  wish  Voltaire  to 
return  to  France  ’ was  not  an  edict  after  all.  Had  he  ever  for- 
gotten he  was  still  Gentleman-in-Ordinary  ? And  as  for  the 
danger  to  his  person — seriously,  what  could  be  done  to  an  old 
man  of  nearly  eighty-four.  Then,  too,  he  needed  a change.  His 
health,  though  he  was  fond  of  repeating  that  he  had  as  many 
mortal  diseases  as  he  had  years,  was  quite  good  enough  to  permit 
him  to  take  one. 

Then  there  was  ‘Irene,’  which  he  could  see  put  into  rehearsal 
himself  ; and  then — then — then — there  was  the  domestic  influence 
of  all  Ferney  urging  him  to  take  the  step,  to  make  up  his  mind,  to 
go  back  to  glory,  to  honour,  to  life. 

Madame  Denis,  of  course,  longed  for  Paris.  Her  sixty-eight 
years  and  a chest  complaint  had  not  cooled  her  zest  for  pleasure 
and  admirers.  And  if  you  do  not  go,  Uncle  Voltaire,  whether 
you  are  banished  or  no,  three  parts  of  Europe  will  think  you  are  ! 
She  had  long  ago  inspired  Marie  Dupuits  with  her  own  love  of 


492 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1778 


amusement.  The  Marquis  de  Villette  was  constitutionally  even 
less  able  to  endure  the  country  than  Mama  Denis.  He  had  the 
finest  house  in  the  capital,  which  had  once  been  the  Bernieres' 
house,  where  Voltaire  had  stayed  as  a young  man,  which  stood  at 
the  corner  of  the  Rue  de  Beaune  on  what  is  now  the  Quai  Voltaire, 
opposite  the  Tuileries,  and  which  is  entirely  at  Papa  Voltaire's 
service  ! Put  all  these  persuadings  and  persuaders  together  before 
a man  already  more  than  half  inclined  to  go,  and  the  result  is 
easily  foreseen. 

On  the  evening  of  February  8,  1778,  Madame  Denis  and  the 
menage  Villette  left  Ferney  to  prepare  the  Hotel  Villette  in  Paris 
against  the  arrival  of  M.  de  Voltaire. 

On  February  5 Voltaire  himself,  accompanied  only  by  Wag- 
niere  and  a cook,  set  out  in  their  travelling  carriage.  There 
was  a painful  farewell  from  the  colonists.  The  poor  people  felt 
that  their  protector  was  leaving  them  for  ever.  It  was  in  vain  he 
promised  them  that  he  would  be  back  in  six  weeks  at  the  latest. 
That  he  really  intended  thus  to  return  is  partially  proved  by  the 
fact  that  he  did  not  even  arrange  his  manuscripts  and  papers 
before  leaving. 

The  first  night  was  spent  at  Nantua. 

At  Bourg,  where  the  horses  were  changed,  Voltaire  was  recog- 
nised and  had  to  escape  from  the  crowd  who  surrounded  him  by 
locking  himself  up  in  a room  in  the  posthouse.  Of  course  the 
innkeeper  produced  his  best  horses,  and  called  out  in  his  en- 
thusiasm, ‘ Drive  fast ! Kill  the  horses — I don't  care  about 
them  ! You  are  carrying  M.  de  Voltaire  ! ’ 

The  incognito  Voltaire  had  resolved  to  maintain  was  already 
a thing  of  the  past.  He  had  begun  to  taste  what  are  called  the 
delights  or  the  drawbacks  of  fame,  according  to  the  temperament 
of  the  speaker. 

The  second  night  was  passed  at  Sanecey.  On  the  third,  at 
Dijon,  some  of  his  adorers  insisted  on  dressing  up  as  waiters  and 
waiting  upon  him  at  supper  in  order  to  get  a good  view  of  him. 
Others  serenaded  the  poor  man  outside  his  bedroom  window.  In 
Dijon  he  made  an  appointment  with  a lawyer,  and  transacted 
some  business. 

The  next  stop  was  at  Joigny.  A spring  of  the  carriage  broke 
when  they  were  near  Moret,  but  Villette  arrived  to  rescue  them 


LOUIS  XVI. 

From  the  Portrait  by  Callet  in  the  Petit  Trianon. 


JE t.  84] 


LATTER  DAYS 


493 


from  that  very  common  dilemma,  and  met  them  with  his  carriage, 
in  which  they  pursued  the  journey. 

The  nearer  they  approached  to  the  capital,  the  higher  rose 
Voltaire’s  spirits.  He  told  stories  with  inimitable  gaiety.  4 He 
seemed  twenty.’ 

At  half -past  three  on  the  afternoon  of  February  10  they  reached 
Paris.  When  the  custom-house  officer  inquired  if  they  had  any- 
thing against  regulations,  Voltaire  replied  that  there  was  nothing 
contraband  except  himself.  He  grew  more  and  more  lively  every 
moment.  They  had  no  sooner  arrived  at  the  Hotel  Villette  than 
this  gay  young  traveller  must  step  round  to  the  Quai  d’ Or  say  to 
see  the  Comte  d’Argental.  Friends  for  sixty  years,  their  friend- 
ship had  been  strong  enough  to  bridge  a gulf  of  separation  which 
had  lasted  more  than  half  their  long  lives.  Madame  d’Argental  had 
died  in  the  December  of  1774.  There  was  but  one  Angel  now. 
He  had  taken  wing  too,  for  the  moment,  Voltaire  found  when  he 
reached  the  house.  But  the  old  man  was  no  sooner  back  in  the 
Hotel  Villette  than  d’Argental  arrived,  and  the  two  fell  on  each 
other’s  necks.  4 1 have  left  off  dying  to  come  and  see  you,’  says 
Voltaire.  But  there  was  a shadow  on  their  happiness.  D’Argental 
brought  bad  news.  Two  days  earlier,  on  February  8,  Lekain, 
whose  first  part  had  been  Titus  in  Voltaire’s  ‘Brutus,’  played  his 
last  part  in  4 Adelaide  du  Guesclin.’  He  died,  in  spite  of  all  the 
skill  of  Tronchin.  Voltaire  4 uttered  a great  cry.’  Lekain  had 
been  his  friend.  Lekain  was  to  have  played  in  4 Irene.’ 

Belle-et-Bonne  tells  how  the  two  old  men  sat  up  late  into  the 
night  discussing  the  additions  Voltaire  had  made  in  that  play. 

But  for  it,  but  for  the  thousand  distractions  of  this  new 
world,  the  loud  acclamations,  the  surging  stream  of  visitors  the 
moment  brought,  Voltaire  might  have  mourned  Lekain  longer. 

But  he  was  back  in  Paris.  When  he  left  it,  he  was  a power,  a 
danger,  a fear.  He  had  returned  to  it  a king,  and  awaited  his 
crowning. 


494 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1778 


CHAPTER  XLIII 

THE  LAST  VISIT 

Mokley  speaks  of  Voltaire’s  last  visit  as  ‘one  of  the  historic 
events  of  the  century,’  ‘ the  last  great  commotion  in  Paris  under 
the  old  regime .’  ‘ A ghost,  a prophet,  an  apostle,’  says  Grimm, 

‘could  not  have  excited  a more  fervent  interest.’ 

The  Salons  worshipped  the  man  who  for  sixty  years  had  been 
the  first  wit  of  the  wittiest  age  in  history — the  author  of  that 
dear,  daring,  ribald,  wicked  ‘Pucelle.’ 

The  Philosophers  kissed  the  hem  of  the  garment  of  the  author 
of  ‘ The  Philosophical  Dictionary.’ 

The  Academy  fell  at  the  feet  of  him  who  had  attempted  every 
kind  of  literature  and  failed  in  none. 

The  Drama  welcomed  not  only  the  most  famous  playwright 
since  Corneille  and  Racine,  but  the  man  who  for  sixty  years  had 
not  ceased  to  try  to  improve  the  civil  status  of  actors. 

The  thrifty  bourgeois  left  their  shops  and  stood  in  crowds 
outside  the  Hotel  Villette,  waiting  to  see  him  who  was  himself  of 
their  order  and  had  fought  for  its  rights  and  rent  earth  and 
heaven  with  cries  against  its  wrongs. 

The  Protestant  came  to  worship  him  who  had  preached 
Tolerance,  defended  the  Calas,  and  flung  all  the  weight  of  his 
scorn  and  passion  against  a law  which  proclaimed  the  heretic’s 
wife  his  mistress,  and  their  children  bastards. 

The  submerged,  the  canaille , fierce  and  hungry-eyed,  were 
among  the  street  crowds  to  see  him  who  had  pleaded  against  a 
criminal  code  which  punished  petty  theft,  blasphemy,  and  deser- 
tion in  time  of  peace,  by  death  ; meted  to  the  hapless  imbeciles, 
called  sorcerers,  the  vengeance  of  superstition  and  fear ; and 
robbed  the  children  of  the  condemned  by  confiscating  their  goods 
to  the  King. 


JEhi.  84J 


THE  LAST  VISIT 


495 


Court  and  Church  paid  him  the  higher  compliment  of  fearing 
him. 

The  preachers  denounced  the  apostate  from  their  pulpits. 
Here  is  he  who  has  not  only,  having  examined  the  evidences  of 
Christianity,  boldly  declared  that  he  finds  them  absurd  and 
inadequate,  but  has  also  dared  to  attack  the  evil  lives  of  the 
believers,  tyranny,  oppression,  persecution,  calling  them  the 
inevitable  consequence  of  the  Faith,  and  so  the  most  powerful  of 
all  arguments  against  it. 

Anti-Christ ! Anti-Christ ! 

King  and  ministers  turned  and  looked  at  each  other  in  con- 
sternation. Surely  there  was  somewhere  an  edict  of  banishment 
against  this  person  ? But  where  ? If  it  had  been  found,  no  one 
would  have  dared  to  put  it  into  execution. 

The  Paris  which  had  once  imprisoned  him  for  teaching  it  how 
to  become  free,  and  persecuted  him  for  opposing  persecution,  was 
at  last  the  Paris  of  Voltaire,  and  not  the  antechamber  of  the 
Kings  of  France. 

On  the  day  after  his  arrival,  Wednesday,  February  11,  1778, 
he  received  three  hundred  visitors.  In  an  outer  room  were 
Madame  Denis  and  Villette.  And  within,  his  crown  an  old 
nightcap  and  his  royal  robes  an  ancient  bedgown,  sat  the  King  of 
intellectual  France.  The  courtier  bred  in  Courts  knew  well  how 
to  play  his  Majesty.  Easy  and  gracious  in  manner,  no  visitor 
went  away  without  a mot , an  anecdote,  a happy  quotation  he 
could  repeat  to  his  friends — ‘I  heard  it  from  the  great  Voltaire.’ 
One  of  the  guests  was  the  perfidious  La  Harpe,  who  had  not  seen 
his  old  friend  since  they  parted  in  anger  at  Ferney  ten  years  ago, 
and  who  found,  he  said,  the  wit  undimmed,  the  memory  unim- 
paired. 

In  intervals  between  the  departure  of  one  guest  and  the 
admission  of  the  next — if  there  could  have  been  any  such 
intervals — the  old  playwright  dictated  a new  line  or  a correction 
for  ‘ Irene’  to  Wagniere,  and  then  went  on  receiving  half  Paris. 
‘ All  Parnassus  was  there,  from  the  mire  to  the  summit,’  said 
Madame  du  Deffand.  In  that  crowded  day,  her  old  friend  found 
time  to  write  her  a little  note  and  tell  her  how  he  had  arrived, 
dead,  but  was  risen  again  to  throw  himself  at  the  feet  of  his 
Marquise. 


496 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1778 


Thursday,  February  12,  brought  a congratulatory  deputation 
from  the  Academy,  which  was  represented  by  three  personal 
friends  of  Voltaire — Saint-Lambert,  Marmontel,  and  the  Prince 
de  Beauvau.  His  Majesty  received  them  with  ‘ a lively  recogni- 
tion,’ and  sent  a cheerful  message  to  the  Academy  that  he  hoped 
to  visit  it  in  person. 

Gluck,  the  great  musician,  and  Piccini  the  lesser,  came  to  do 
homage,  one  after  the  other,  on  February  18.  ‘ Ah  ! that’s  as  it 

should  be  ! ’ says  old  Voltaire.  ‘ Piccini  comes  after  Gluck.’ 

The  Comedie  Franchise  sent  a congratulatory  deputation  on 
Saturday,  the  14th,  and  much  laboured  flattery  in  an  address 
delivered  by  Bellecour  and  Madame  Vestris.  Voltaire  responded 
in  the  same  manner — exaggerated.  ‘ We  all  played  comedy 
beautifully ! ’ he  said,  with  a twinkle,  afterwards. 

For  the  rest  of  that  day  his  talk  to  his  guests  was  graver  than 
usual.  He  discussed  politics  with  them — and  the  French  politics 
of  1778  were  enough  to  sober  Folly  itself.  A weak  King,  a ruined 
Treasury,  a corrupt  Church — and,  as  Voltaire  himself  wrote  to 
Florian  a week  or  two  later,  in  the  social  state  ‘ a revolting  luxury 
and  a fearful  misery.’ 

He  showed  his  guests  a letter  he  had  just  received  from 
another  King  who  was  neither  fool  nor  feeble,  and  who  ruled 
a kingdom  which  beside  starving  France  was  Utopia,  El  Dorado, 
Paradise. 

By  Sunday,  February  15,  Voltaire  was  ill.  But  then  Tronchin 
was  in  Paris  ! Voltaire  had  not  written  to  that  old  friend  for  a 
matter  of  ten  years — except  ‘ a billet-doux  on  arriving  ’ in  the 
capital.  But  though  Tronchin  disapproved  of  almost  everything 
Voltaire  did  and  thought,  the  good  Doctor  loved  the  man  as  a 
woman  loves  an  engaging  and  ill- trained  child. 

He  forgave  the  ten  years’  silence  and  the  Chatelaine  theatre, 
even  old  Voltaire’s  truculent  unbelief — came  to  him,  looked  at 
him  with  those  serene,  wise  eyes,  forbade  all  going  out,  and  com- 
manded absolute  rest. 

Voltaire  had  been  going  to  the  theatre  to-morrow.  Well,  he 
could  give  that  up.  But  rest?  Madame  Necker  called  to  see 
him  this  very  day — Sunday.  And  how,  pray,  could  he  decline 
to  receive  the  wife  of  her  husband,  the  woman  who  had  done 
so  much  for  him  in  the  matter  of  the  Pigalle  statue,  and  who, 


Mi.  84] 


THE  LAST  VISIT 


497 


distantly  related  to  Belle-et-Bonne,  had  sternly  disapproved  of 
her  innocence  being  used  to  reform  a wickedness  like  Villette’s 
and  had  only  brought  herself  with  difficulty  to  enter  that 
scoundrel’s  house  ? Voltaire  received  her  with  the  most  delightful 
empressement. 

And  then,  waiting  to  see  him  was  the  ‘ wise  and  illustrious  ’ 
Franklin,  philosopher  and  politician,  who  until  Voltaire’s  arrival 
had  himself  been  the  lion  of  Paris.  How  to  refuse  him  ? He 
came  into  the  presence  chamber,  bringing  with  him  his  grandson. 
Voltaire  spoke  in  English  until  Madame  Denis  told  him  that 
Franklin  perfectly  understood  French.  There  were  twenty 
persons  or  so  in  the  room.  The  two  great  men  talked  of  the 
government  and  constitution  of  the  United  States.  ‘ If  I were 
forty,’  says  Voltaire,  ‘ I should  go  and  settle  in  your  happy 
country.’ 

Then  Dr.  Franklin  presented  his  grandson,  a lad  about  seven- 
teen. Voltaire  raised  his  hands  above  the  boy’s  head  and  blessed 
him,  ‘uttering  only  these  words,’  and  in  English — ‘God  and 
Liberty.’ 

He  told  the  story  himself  to  several  of  his  correspondents.  It 
moved  his  old  heart.  And  the  persons  who  saw  the  scene — to 
be  sure,  they  were  French  and  ready  ta  be  affected  at  anything — 
shed  tears. 

The  Franklins  had  not  been  gone  an  hour  before  Voltaire  was 
receiving  Lord  Stormont,  the  English  ambassador,  and  Belbatre, 
a famous  performer  on  the  harpsichord.  Best  ? Dr.  Tronchin 
already  knew  the  temper  and  disposition  of  his  invalid,  and  some- 
thing, though  not  yet  all,  of  the  selfish  and  pleasure-loving 
character  of  his  Denis  and  his  Villette.  Voltaire  was  sent  to  bed. 
And  prudent  Tronchin  inserted  a notice  in  the  ‘ Journal  de  Paris  ’ 
stating  that  M.  de  Voltaire  had  lived  since  he  came  to  Paris  on 
the  capital  of  his  strength  instead  of  only  on  the  income,  as  all 
his  friends  must  wish;  that  that  capital  would  very  soon  be 
exhausted,  ‘and  we  shall  be  the  witnesses,  if  we  are  not  the 
accomplices,  of  his  death.’ 

The  notice  did  not  appear  until  February  20,  and  by  the  19th 
this  marvellous  old  man  was  at  least  well  enough  to  be  assigning 
the  parts  in  ‘ Irene.’  Richelieu,  himself  eighty-two,  came  to  help 
him  in  this  delicate  task.  The  magnificent  marshal,  in  spite  of 

K K 


i/ 


498 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1778 


the  care  and  splendour  of  his  dress,  did  not  look  nearly  so  young 
and  vigorous  as  the  attenuated  figure  in  bedgown  and  nightcap, 
with  his  sunken  eyes  afire  and  all  his  old  keenness  and  spirit. 
Besides  settling  parts,  he  was  now  rewriting  the  play  itself  so 
enthusiastically,  that  wretched  Wagniere  did  not  even  have  time 
to  dress  himself. 

The  next  day,  February  20,  that  poor,  shameful,  tawdry 
favourite,  Madame  Dubarry,  came  out  of  her  social  banishment  to 
see  this  new  king,  Arouet.  Le  Brun,  poet,  and  once  benefactor 
of  Marie  Corneille,  who  had  written  an  inflammatory  ode  in  praise 
of  the  monarch  and  wanted  to  see  if  it  had  been  appreciated, 
closely  followed  the  Dubarry.  He  tells  how  Voltaire  contrasted 
the  fresh,  fair  innocence  of  Belle-et-Bonne  with  the  stale  and 
painted  charms  of  the  last  avowed  mistress  of  a King  of  France. 

Le  Brun  himself  was  characteristically  received  with  ‘ You 
see,  Sir,  a poor  old  man  of  eighty-four,  who  has  committed  eighty- 
four  follies.’  The  story  runs  that  Voltaire  had  said  the  same 
to  Sophie  Arnould,  and  that  that  sprightly  person  had  replied, 

‘ Why,  that’s  nothing  ! I am  only  forty  and  I have  committed 
a thousand.’ 

It  was  on  this  same  day,  February  20,  that  Voltaire  received 
a letter  from  Abbe  Gaultier,  who  had  been  a Jesuit  for  seventeen 
years  and  a cure  for  twenty,  and  now  had  a post  at  the  Hospital 
of  the  Incurables.  Gaultier  was  anxious  for  the  salvation  of 
Voltaire’s  soul,  and  that  he  should  have  the  saving  of  it.  Voltaire 
responded  favourably ; and  the  next  day,  the  21st,  received  the 
priest.  Gaultier  and  Wagniere  both  give  accounts  of  the  inter- 
view. Both  may  have  lied.  One  must  have.  The  truth  seems 
to  be  that  Gaultier  was  ushered  into  a salon  full  of  people,  whom 
Voltaire  soon  dismissed.  He  took  the  priest  into  his  private 
room,  where — to  make  a long  matter  short — Gaultier  offered  him- 
self as  Voltaire’s  confessor.  The  Patriarch  asked  if  anyone  had 
suggested  to  him  to  make  that  offer — the  Archbishop  of  Paris,  for 
instance,  or  the  Cure  of  Saint- Sulpice,  in  whose  parish  Villette’s 
house  was  situated.  Gaultier  replied,  No  ; and  Voltaire  said  he 
was  glad  of  the  assurance.  A long  conversation  ensued.  Voltaire 
declared  that  he  loved  God ; and  Gaultier  answered  that  he  must 
give  proofs  of  it.  They  were  three  times  interrupted — by  the 
Marquis  de  Villevieille,  nephew  Mignot,  and  Wagniere.  Madame 


/Et.  84] 


THE  LAST  VISIT 


499 


Denis  came  in  to  beg  that  her  uncle  might  not  be  tired  and 
worried.  When  Gaultier  was  dismissed,  it  was  with  the  promise 
that  he  should  be  received  again. 

When  Wagniere  asked  Voltaire  what  he  thought  of  Gaultier, 
Voltaire  replied  that  he  was  ‘ a good  fool/  He  appears  to  have 
thought  that  he  would  be  more  easily  satisfied  than  shrewder 
men,  and  that  if  it  came  to  the  dreadful  necessity  of  a confession 
as  an  insurance  of  decent  and  honourable  burial,  Gaultier  would 
be  the  best  confessor. 

A few  days  later  a certain  Abbe  Martin  thrust  himself  in  and 
imperatively  insisted  that  the  sceptic  should  make  confession  then 
and  there  to  him.  ‘ I have  come  for  that.  I shall  not  move  an  inch/ 

4 From  whom  do  you  come,  M.  1’ Abbe  ? 7 

‘ From  God  Himself/ 

‘ Well,  well,  Sir — your  credentials  ? ’ 

The  Abbe  was  dumb.  The  inconsistent  old  Patriarch,  feeling 
that  he  had  been  severe,  went  out  of  his  way  to  be  more  than 
usually  kind  and  agreeable  during  the  rest  of  the  visit. 

But  such  incidents  made  one  ponder.  To  avoid  the  sickness 
which  would  make  confession  a necessity  was  the  obvious  thing 
to  do.  But  to  keep  well  meant  to  rest.  And  every  hour  that 
struck,  every  turn  of  the  wheel,  brought  fresh  excitements,  fresh 
work,  fresh  visitors. 

On  the  very  day  of  Gaultier’s  visit,  February  21,  came  Madame 
du  Deffand,  whose  long  friendship  and  ‘ herculean  weakness  ’ had 
enabled  her  to  brave  the  crowds  that  surrounded  Voltaire,  and 
visit  him  first  about  a week  earlier,  on  February  14.  Her  account 
of  that  occasion  has  been  lost.  But  the  most  ennui ed  and  world- 
weary  worldling  of  any  time  confessed  that  it  had  been  delightful. 

On  this  February  21  the  event  had  lost  the  one  great  antidote 
to  boredom — novelty.  Denis  was  ‘ gaupe ,’  and  Villette  ‘ a plat 
person  of  comedy,’  and  Belle-et-Bonne  damned  with  faint  praise 
as  ‘ said  to  be  amiable.’ 

But  in  the  presence  of  Voltaire,  her  correspondent  since  her 
youth,  her  warmest  sympathiser  when  blindness  fell  upon  her, 
even  Madame  du  Deffand  forgot  again  for  a while  what  a bitter 
and  empty  world  that  is  where  Pleasure  is  the  only  god  and 
amusement  the  be-all  and  end-all  of  existence.  Old  Voltaire 
entertained  her  with  a lively  account  of  Gaultier’s  visit. 


K K 2 


500  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1778 

But,  all  the  same,  he  had  not  forgotten  that  that  incident  had 
a very  serious  side. 

Four  days  later,  on  February  25,  about  midday,  he  was 
dictating  in  bed,  when  suddenly,  in  a violent  fit  of  coughing,  he 
broke  a blood-vessel.  Wagniere,  terrified,  rang  the  bell  loudly. 
Madame  Denis  ran  into  the  room,  and  Tronchin  was  summoned 
immediately.  It  had  been  so  easy  to  laugh  at  Gaultier  with  a 
blind  old  mondame  when  one  felt  lively  and  well ! But  now — 
call  him  at  once ! Turning  to  the  persons  in  his  room,  the  old 
man  bade  them  all  remember  that  he  had  fulfilled  4 what  they  call 
here  one’s  duties.’  Tronchin  came,  bled  the  patient,  and,  what 
was  likely  to  be  far  more  useful,  sent  him  a very  excellent  and 
strong-minded  young  nurse  who  was  to  refuse  admission  to 
all  visitors,  and  a surgeon  who  was  to  stay  in  the  house  all 
night. 

Meanwhile,  Protestant  Wagniere,  who  regarded  his  master’s 
dealings  with  the  priests  as  disgraceful  to  his  honour  in  this 
world  and  very  unlikely  to  save  his  soul  for  the  next,  had  not 
summoned  Gaultier. 

The  next  day,  February  26,  Voltaire  wrote  the  priest  a little 
note : 4 You  promised,  Sir,  to  come  and  hear  me.  Come  as  soon 
as  you  can.’  Madame  Denis  added  her  entreaties  in  a postscript. 
But,  it  being  nine  o’clock  at  night  when  Gaultier  received  the 
letter,  he  did  not  come  to  the  Hotel  Villette  till  the  next  day, 
when  his  penitent  could  not,  or  would  not,  see  him. 

By  Sunday,  March  1,  he  was  well  enough  to  listen  to  La 
Harpe  reading  a canto  of  4 La  Pharsale  ’ — so  loudly  that  he  could 
be  heard  in  the  street. 

On  the  Monday  morning  d’Alembert  came  to  see  the  sick 
man.  Voltaire  told  him  that  he  had  4 taken  the  leap,’  and  sent 
for  Gaultier.  There  had  been  other  priests,  said  d’Alembert, 
writing  to  Frederick  the  Great,  who  had  thrust  themselves  into 
his  room,  preaching  at  him  like  fanatics,  4 whom  the  old  Patriarch, 
from  goodness  of  heart,  had  not  ordered  to  be  thrown  out  of  the 
window.’  Gaultier  was  more  moderate  and  reasonable  than  his 
brethren ; and,  thinks  d’Alembert,  if  Voltaire  has  the  natural 
weakness  to  feel  that  it  is  of  consequence  what  becomes  of  the 
remains  of  poor  humanity  after  death,  he  is  right  to  do  as  he 
proposes  to  do — as  all  the  world  does,  the  good  Protestant  as  well 


tEt.  84] 


THE  LAST  VISIT 


501 


as  the  godless  pagan.  This  is  d’Alembert’s  attitude  to  the  matter 
throughout. 

Later  on  that  same  day,  Gaultier  reappeared.  He  was  ushered 
into  the  sick  room.  Voltaire  sent  the  servants  out  of  it. 
Wagniere  listened  at  the  door,  which  was  luckily  only  a sort  of 
paper  screen.  He  was  very  much  agitated  by  those  fears  for  his 
master’s  honour.  When  Voltaire  called  him  and  bade  him  bring 
writing  materials,  the  servant  was  too  moved  to  answer  the 
question  as  to  what  ailed  him.  Voltaire  took  the  pen,  wrote  his 
statement  or  profession  of  faith,  which  declared  that  he  had  con- 
fessed to  Gaultier,  that  he  died  in  the  Catholic  religion  in  which 
he  was  born,  and  that  if  he  had  scandalised  the  Church  he  asked 
pardon  of  God  and  of  it.  D’Alembert — the  truthful  d’Alembert 
— says  that  Voltaire  told  him  he  added  the  last  phrase  at  the 
request  of  the  priest,  ‘ and  to  have  peace.’ 

But  to  that  ‘zeal  in  concessions,’  which  had  always  made  him 
as  vigorously  thorough  in  his  lies  as  he  was  thorough  in  his  good 
deeds,  the  addenda  may  in  part  be  attributed. 

The  Marquis  de  Villevieille  and  Abbe  Mignot  readily  signed 
what  Gaultier  lightly  called  ‘ a little  declaration  which  does  not 
signify  much.’  Wagniere  hotly  declined. 

Before  leaving,  Gaultier  proposed  to  give  the  sick  man  the 
Communion.  Voltaire  excused  himself.  He  coughed  too  much, 
he  said.  He  gave  Gaultier,  according  to  the  custom,  twenty-five 
louis  for  the  poor  of  the  parish,  and  the  priest  left. 

There  was  one  man  about  Voltaire,  but  only  one,  who  wished 
him  to  declare,  not  what  it  was  expedient  to  think,  but  what  he 
really  thought : what  were  the  convictions  of  his  soul,  and  the 
creed  of  his  heart. 

A few  days  earlier,  on  February  28,  at  the  earnest  request  of 
Wagniere  and  at  a moment  when  he  solemnly  believed  that  his 
last  hour  had  come,  Voltaire  had  written  down,  clearly  and  firmly, 
his  real  faith. 

‘ I die  adoring  God,  loving  my  friends,  not  hating  my  enemies, 
and  detesting  superstition.  February  28,  1778.  Voltaire.’ 

So  far  as  a few  weak  words  can  express  any  man’s  attitude 
towards  the  Supreme  Being  and  his  own  fellow- sinners,  this 
confession  expresses  Voltaire’s. 

It  is  still  preserved  in  the  National  Library  at  Paris, 


502 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIBE 


[1778 


On  the  following  day,  March  8,  Gaultier  returned.  He  wanted, 
or  rather  his  superiors,  the  Archbishop  of  Paris  and  de  Tersac, 
the  Cure  of  Saint- Sulpice,  to  whom  he  had  shown  the  confession, 
said  that  they  wanted,  one  more  detailed  and  less  equivocal.  The 
truth  was  Saint- Sulpice  would  have  liked  the  credit  of  such  a 
conversion  himself.  This  ‘man  of  little  understanding  and  a 
bigoted  fanatic/  as  d’Alembert  called  him,  was  not  a person  to 
be  offended.  He  had,  as  parish  priest,  the  disposal  of  the  bodies 
of  those  who  died  in  his  parish. 

Voltaire  would  not  see  Gaultier.  But  from  that  stormy  sick 
bed,  on  March  4,  he  wrote  the  most  graceful  of  conciliatory  letters 
to  offended  de  Tersac  ; and  laconically  announced  to  poor  Gaultier, 
in  a note,  that  Villette  had  given  orders  that  until  M.  de  Voltaire 
was  better,  no  priest,  except  the  Cure  of  Saint- Sulpice,  should  be 
admitted  to  the  house. 

Persistent  Gaultier  returned  in  a week  and  was  again  refused 
admission.  Deathbed  conversions  were  his  speciality,  and  he  was 
not  going  to  be  cheated  of  this  one  without  a struggle.  Mean- 
while Voltaire  upset  all  his  plans  by  recovering  rapidly.  Paris, 
who  had  heard  much  more  than  the  truth  concerning  this  illness 
and  confession,  avenged  herself  for  her  anxiety  by  epigrams.  It 
was  right  that  the  Cure  of  the  Incurables  should  attempt  such  a 
conversion  ! The  patient  himself  (whose  every  utterance  was 
reported)  declared  that  if  he  had  lived  on  the  banks  of  the  Ganges 
he  would  have  died  with  a cow’s  tail  in  his  mouth.  To  die  with 
a lie  in  it  did  not  shock  Paris  in  the  least. 

To  find  excuses  for  Voltaire’s  act,  it  is  as  necessary,  as  it  is 
now  impossible,  to  realise  fully  the  conditions  of  life  and  death 
under  a government  which  permitted  no  liberty  of  conscience, 
and  in  which  men  were  either  orthodox  or  anathema. 

There  were  other  troubles  besides  religious  ones  to  harry  this 
old  patient  of  eighty-four  out  of  a sick  bed  to  the  grave  before 
his  time. 

Tronchin  wanted  Voltaire’s  real  good,  and  Voltaire’s  real  good 
meant  Ferney  and  repose ; while  Villette  was  all  for  himself, 
pleasure,  and  Paris.  One  day  the  doctor  turned  the  Marquis  by 
force  out  of  the  sick-room.  Villette  called  in  a rival  practitioner, 
Lorry — famous  and  free-thinking — and  no  doubt  was  disappointed 
when  Tronchin  worked  amicably  side  by  side  with  his  confrere . 


VOLTAIRE’S  DECLARATION  OF  FAITH. 

From  the  Original  in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale,  Paris. 


^Et.  84] 


THE  LAST  VISIT 


503 


A College  of  Physicians  could  not  have  kept  Voltaire,  when 
he  began  to  recover  a little,  from  doing  as  he  liked.  He  was 
soon  sitting  up  in  bed,  working  on  ‘Irene’  and  dictating  to 
Wagni5re  as  usual.  Visitors  thrust  themselves  in  again.  Poets 
came  to  read  their  complimentary  odes.  One  writer  announced 
to  Voltaire  in  a most  wearisome  prepared  speech,  that  to-day  he 
had  come  to  visit  Homer,  to-morrow  he  would  visit  Euripides, 

the  next  Sophocles,  the  next  Tacitus,  the  next ‘ Sir,  I am 

very  old,’  says  the  voice  from  the  bed  ; ‘ if  you  could  pay  all  these 
calls  in  one ’ 

Another  flatterer  said  that,  having  surpassed  his  brethren  in 
everything,  Voltaire  would  surpass  Fontenelle  himself  in  length 
of  days. 

‘ Ah ! no,  Sir.  Fontenelle  was  a Norman : he  cheated  even 
Nature.’ 

By  March  10  the  invalid  was  not  unnaturally  worse  again, 
and  Tronchin  kept  him  in  bed,  although,  or  perhaps  because, 
there  was  a rehearsal  of  ‘ Irene  ’ actually  going  on  in  the  house 
at  the  moment. 

The  next  day,  Madame  Vestris,  who  was  to  play  in  ‘ Ir5ne,’ 
was  allowed  to  see  him  about  her  part.  The  maddening  placidity 
with  which  she  delivered  lines  intended  to  be  passionately  pathetic 
did  not  help  to  soothe  the  invalid’s  irritable  and  nervous  con- 
dition. He  told  her  how  fifty  years  ago  he  had  seen  Mademoiselle 
Duclos  reduce  the  whole  house  to  tears  by  a single  line ; and 
talking  to  Mademoiselle  Clairon  afterwards,  he  hit  the  imper- 
turbable Vestris  hard  in  a mot  well  understood  of  all  Paris. 

He  had  himself  recited  with  extraordinary  feeling  a few  lines 
out  of  his  last  play.  ‘ Ah  ! ’ said  Clairon,  ‘ where  will  you  find 
an  actress  to  render  them  like  that  ? Such  an  effort  might  kill 
her.’ 

‘ So  much  the  better,’  answers  the  poor  old  playwright  viciously. 

‘ I should  be  only  too  glad  to  render  the  public  such  a service.’ 

The  mediocrity  of  the  other  actors  also  grievously  afflicted 
the  overwrought  mind  and  body  of  the  sick  man.  There  came, 
indeed,  times  when  he  sank  into  a sort  of  stupor  : when  nothing 
seemed  to  matter  ; when  he  was  indifferent  or  unconscious  that 
Madame  Denis  was  conducting  rehearsals  and  giving  away  the 
first-night  tickets  on  her  own  responsibility,  and  that  d’Argental 


504 


THE  LIFE  OF  YOLTAIEE 


[1778 


and  La  Harpe  were  making  such  alterations  in  ‘ Irene  ’ as  they 
deemed  fit.  He  must  have  been  really  ill.  In  four  days,  it  is 
said,  he  had  aged  four  years.  The  trumpet  blasts  of  adulation  in 
prose  or  verse,  always  appearing  in  the  newspapers,  had  no  power 
to  rouse  him  ; and  as  for  the  abuse — ‘ 1 received  such  abomina- 
tions every  week  at  Ferney,’  he  said,  ‘ and  had  to  pay  the  postage ; 
here  I get  them  every  day,  but  they  cost  me  nothing — so  I am 
the  gainer.’ 

On  March  14  Madame  Denis  presided  over  the  last  rehearsal 
of  ‘ Irene,’  and  on  March  16  was  the  first  performance. 

The  playwright,  who  had  written  and  rewritten  it,  laboured 
at  it,  as  he  said  himself,  as  if  he  had  been  twenty,  was  in  bed  in 
the  Hotel  Villette,  not  too  ill  to  be  interested  in  its  success,  but 
past  any  great  anxiety  concerning  it. 

The  house  was  crowded.  Marie  Antoinette  was  there — Marie 
Antoinette,  who  had  been  brilliantly  imprudent  enough  to  inquire 
why,  if  Madame  Geoffrin,  ‘the  nurse  of  the  philosophers,’  had 
been  received  at  Court,  Voltaire  should  not  be?  She  had  a note- 
book in  her  hand,  and  put  down  therein  all  the  pious  and  edifying 
passages  to  prove  to  her  absent  lord  that  M.  de  Voltaire’s  con- 
version was  real ! Her  brother-in-law,  d’Artois,  was  there  ; the 
Duke  and  Duchess  of  Bourbon  : all  Versailles,  but  the  King. 

The  play,  or  more  correctly  the  playwright,  was  received  with 
tumultuous  applause.  ‘ Irene  ’ was  feeble  and  tired,  like  the  old 
hand  that  had  written  it.  But  here  and  there,  where  the  bright 
flame  of  a dying  genius  flickered  up  for  a moment,  the  house 
applauded  madly,  and  to  parts  wholly  meritless  listened  in  respect- 
ful silence.  After  each  act,  messengers  were  despatched  to  tell 
Voltaire  all  was  well.  At  the  end  of  the  last,  Dupuits  rushed  to 
announce  a general  success,  and  the  sick-room  quickly  filled  with 
congratulating  friends.  ‘ What  you  say  consoles  but  does  not 
cure  me,’  said  the  poor  old  invalid.  But  he  roused  himself  enough 
to  inquire  which  verses  were  the  most  applauded,  and  to  chuckle 
joyfully  when  he  heard  of  the  delighted  reception  of  those  which 
smote  the  clergy  hip  and  thigh. 

On  March  19  the  ‘ Journal  de  Paris  ’ published  a very  sanguine 
account  of  Voltaire’s  health.  ‘ His  recent  indisposition  has  left 
no  after-effects.’  It  was  certainly  true  that  he  was  better  again. 
He  received  a deputation  from  the  Academy  congratulating  him 


Mt.  84] 


THE  LAST  VISIT 


505 


on  ‘Irene,’  and  by  March  21  was  well  enough  to  go  out  in  a 
carriage.  He  was  recognised  and  surrounded  by  the  people  in 
the  streets,  and  when  he  regained  the  Hotel  Villette  there  was  a 
deputation  of  Freemasons  waiting  to  see  him.  There  was  no 
peace  for  him,  in  fact,  at  home  or  abroad.  His  whole  visit  to 
Paris  was  like  the  progress  of  a popular  sovereign  who  has  no 
officials  to  ensure  his  comfort  and  privacy. 

Being  better,  the  most  natural  thing  to  do  was  to  go  over 
‘ Irene.’  He  sent  for  an  acting  copy.  Directly  he  saw  how  it 
had  been  tampered  with,  he  fell  into  the  greatest  rage  in  which 
Wagniere,  after  twenty-four  years’  service  and  a much  richer 
experience  of  his  master’s  vifness  than  Collini,  had  ever  seen  him. 
He  forced  Madame  Denis  to  confess.  He  pushed  her  away  so 
that  she  fell  into  an  armchair,  or  rather,  says  Wagniere  spitefully, 
into  the  arms  of  Duvivier,  that  dull  young  man  she  afterwards 
married.  Then  the  indignant  uncle  sent  the  niece  out  (it  was 
raining  too)  to  d’Argental’s  house  to  fetch  the  manuscripts  and 
plays  with  which  he  had  intrusted  that  old  friend.  His  rage 
lasted  for  twelve  hours.  He  roundly  abused  both  d’Argental  and 
La  Harpe.  And  then,  for  he  was  the  same  Voltaire,  he  apologised 
to  both  with  a most  generous  humility. 

On  March  28  he  went  to  see  Turgot — ‘ Sully-Turgot  ’ — the 
man  who  had  ‘ saved  the  century  from  decadence,’  and  whose 
disgrace  in  1776  Voltaire  had  felt  as  a keen  personal  grief  and 
an  irreparable  public  disaster.  The  meeting  was  very  French 
and  effusive.  But  it  was  not,  for  that,  insincere.  ‘ Let  me  kiss 
the  hands  of  him,’  cries  old  Voltaire,  1 who  has  signed  the  salva- 
tion of  the  people.’ 

The  day  of  this  King’s  coronation  had  been  fixed  for  March  80. 
The  nominal  King  sat  aloof  and  sulky  at  Versailles.  But  what 
did  that  matter  ? The  Queen,  keener-eyed,  saw  in  Voltaire  a 
rival  force  not  to  be  disregarded.  And  when  d’ Artois  heard  of 
Voltaire’s  death — ‘ There  has  died  a great  rogue  and  a great  man,’ 
said  he.  From  a d’Artois  it  was  no  bad  testimony. 

At  four  o’clock  in  the  afternoon  of  this  March  80  a gorgeous, 
blue,  star-spangled  coach  waited  at  the  door  of  the  Hotel  Villette. 

And  presently  there  gets  into  it,  amid  the  shouts  and  acclama- 
tions of  his  subjects,  a very,  very  lean  old  figure,  in  that  grey 
peruke  whose  fashion  he  had  not  altered  for  forty  years,  a square 


506 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1778 


cap  on  the  top  of  it,  a red  coat  lined  with  ermine,  Ferney  white 
silk  stockings  on  the  shrunken  legs,  large  silver  buckles  on  the 
shoes,  a little  cane  in  the  hand  with  a crow’s  beak  for  a head, 
and  over  all  this  extraordinary  fancy  dress  (it  was  only  rather  less 
remarkable  in  Paris  in  1778  than  it  would  be  in  Paris  to-day) 
Catherine’s  sable  pelisse. 

Thus  dressed,  he  was  driven  through  tumultuous  crowds  to 
the  Louvre,  where  two  thousand  persons  received  him  with  shouts 
of  ‘ Long  live  Voltaire  ! ’ 

The  Academy  met  him  in  their  outer  hall — an  honour  never 
accorded  to  anyone,  even  to  princes.  Twenty  Academicians  were 
present.  The  absentees  were  all  churchmen.  The  King  was 
conducted  to  the  Presidential  Chamber,  and  there  unanimously 
elected  to  the  next  three  months’  Presidency.  Then  the  Per- 
petual Secretary,  friend  d’Alembert,  rose  and  read  a so-called 
Eulogy  of  Boileau,  which  was  really  a Eulogy  of  Voltaire.  The 
serene  dignity  of  the  Secretary  contrasted  not  a little  with  old 
Voltaire’s  painful  efforts  after  self-command.  It  was  twenty-eight 
years  since  he  had  been  among  them.  It  was  thirty-five  since,  as 
a body,  they  had  refused  him  admission.  And  now ! 

He  paid  a brief  visit  to  d’Alembert’s  office,  and  then  got  into 
his  carriage  again.  The  crowds  had  increased.  All  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men  were  here  to  welcome  him  who  had  pointed  the 
way  to  freedom — who,  unlike  all  other  kings,  was  of  the  people, 
and  so,  for  them.  Frenzied,  as  in  another  frenzy  they  had  hooted 
the  Calas  to  judgment  through  the  streets  of  Toulouse,  and  as 
but  a very  few  years  later  they  might  have  hooted  Voltaire  him- 
self to  the  Place  de  la  Guillotine,  they  applauded  and  worshipped 
him  now.  The  Villettes  and  Madame  Denis  met  him  at  the 
Com6die  Fra^aise.  Their  protection  was  necessary.  The  people 
clambered  on  the  carriage  itself  to  see  him,  to  touch  him.  One 
man  seized  Belle-et-Bonne’s  little  hand  instead  of  the  Patriarch’s. 
‘ Ma  foi ! ’ he  said.  ‘ This  is  a plump  hand  for  eighty-four  ! ’ 

She  and  Madame  Denis  preceded  him  to  the  box  set  aside  for 
the  Gentlemen-in- Ordinary.  Then,  with  the  women  pressing  on 
him  and  plucking  the  fur  from  his  pelisse  to  keep  as  souvenirs, 
Voltaire  made  his  way  through  the  house  to  the  passionate  ac- 
clamations of  the  crowded  audience.  He  would  fain  have  con- 
cealed himself  behind  Belle-et-Bonne  and  his  portly  niece.  ‘ To 


JEt.  84] 


THE  LAST  VISIT 


507 


the  front ! * cried  the  gods.  And  to  the  front  he  came.  Opposite 
him  was  the  royal  box,  in  which  was  d’Artois  who  had  been  with 
the  Queen  at  the  opera,  but  had  slipped  away  to  do  homage  to  a 
greater  royalty. 

Then  another  cry  shook  the  house.  ‘ The  crown  ! * 

Brizard,  the  actor,  came  forward  and  put  a laurel  crown  on 
the  old  poet’s  head.  ‘ Ah,  God  ! You  will  kill  me  with  glory ! * 
he  said.  He  took  it  off  and  put  it  on  Belle-et-Bonne’s.  And  the 
house  bade  her  give  it  back  to  him.  He  resisted.  And  then 
Prince  de  Beauvau  came  forward  and  crowned  him  again.  By 
this  time  the  whole  auditorium  was  on  its  feet.  The  passages 
were  full  to  suffocation.  The  actors,  dressed  for  their  parts, 
came  before  the  curtain  to  join  in  the  enthusiasm.  The  delirium 
lasted  for  twenty  minutes.  The  air  of  the  theatre  was  black  with 
the  dust  caused  by  the  movement  of  so  great  a multitude,  strug- 
gling to  see. 

At  last  the  play  began.  It  was  ‘ Irene,’  of  course — ‘Irene/ 
now  at  its  sixth  representation. 

The  audience  had  read  their  own  meaning  into  its  lines.  They 
applauded  wildly  throughout.  At  the  end  the  curtain  was  raised 
again.  On  the  stage  was  a pedestal,  and  on  the  pedestal  the  bust 
of  Voltaire  which  had  been  brought  from  the  hall  of  the  Com^die 
where  it  had  recently  been  placed.  Actors  and  actresses  were 
grouped  round  it,  holding  garlands  of  flowers.  Some  of  the 
audience,  despite  the  new  regulations,  had  crowded  on  to  the 
stage  for  a better  view. 

Then  Brizard,  dressed  for  his  part  of  monk  in  1 Irene,’  placed 
his  laurel  garland  on  the  head,  and  the  whole  company  followed 
his  example.  From  the  house  burst  a roar  which  sounded  as  if 
it  was  from  one  throat  as  it  was  from  one  heart.  For  the  first 
time  in  France,  said  Grimm,  there  was  no  dissentient  voice. 
‘ Envy  and  hatred,  fanaticism  and  intolerance,  dared  not  murmur.’ 
Perhaps  even  at  that  delirious  moment  the  old  Patriarch  recog- 
nised the  triumph,  not  as  his,  but  as  philosophy’s  : and  rejoiced 
the  more.  ‘ It  is  then  true,  Sire,’  he  wrote  on  April  1,  in  his 
last  letter  to  Frederick  the  Great,  ‘ that  in  the  end  men  will  be 
enlightened,  and  those  who  believe  that  it  pays  to  blind  them 
will  not  always  be  victorious.’ 

March  80,  1778,  is  a great  day  in  the  history  of  France  as 


508 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1778 


celebrating,  not  the  honour  of  Voltaire,  but  of  that  ‘happy 
revolution  he  had  effected  in  the  mind  and  the  conduct  of  his 
century.’ 

Villette  drew  him  forward  to  the  front  of  the  box,  and  while 
he  stood  there  for  a moment  the  applause  redoubled. 

Then  Madame  Vestris,  who  had  played  ‘Irene,’  came  forward 
and  recited  an  ode  by  the  Marquis  de  Saint-Marc.  Voltaire, 
writing  to  Saint-Marc  the  next  day,  thanked  him  for  having  made 
him  immortal  in  the  prettiest  verses  in  the  world.  The  ode  was 
not  bad;  but  if  it  had  been  it  would  have  been  applauded  and 
encored  just  the  same.  Copies  were  circulated  through  the  house. 

On  the  stage  one  woman  came  forward  and  impulsively  kissed 
the  bust,  and  other  enthusiasts  followed  her  example. 

A stranger,  entering  at  the  moment,  supposed  himself  to  be  in 
a madhouse. 

The  curtain  fell  again  ; and  again  rose,  this  time  on  ‘Nanine.* 
Once  more,  it  was  not  the  play  that  counted,  but  the  playwright. 
When  the  curtain  fell  for  the  last  time,  he  made  his  royal  way  to 
his  carriage  between  lines  of  women  sobbing  with  emotion.  Some 
persons  seized  his  hands  and  kissed  them  with  tears.  Others  fell 
upon  the  horses  to  stop  them  and  cried  for  torches.  Thus 
lighting  him,  crowds  accompanied  his  carriage  home,  shouting, 
dancing,  and  weeping.  When  at  last  he  reached  the  Hotel 
Villette,  worn  out  with  the  glory  and  the  high-pitched  emotions 
of  the  day,  the  poor  old  Patriarch  himself  wept  like  a child.  ‘ If 
I had  known  the  people  would  commit  such  follies  I would  never 
have  gone  to  the  Comedie.’ 

But  it  was  the  next  morning  which,  like  all  next  mornings, 
was  the  real  time  for  reflection.  Here  was  the  man  who,  more 
than  any  other  Frenchman  who  ever  lived,  understood  the 
national  temperament.  ‘ Capable  of  all  excesses,’  ‘ the  Parisians 
pass  their  time  in  hissing  and  clapping — in  putting  up  statues 
and  pulling  them  down  again.’  ‘ You  do  not  know  the  French,’ 
he  said  to  Genevan  Wagniere ; ‘ they  would  have  done  as  much 
for  Jean  Jacques.’  ‘ They  want  to  stifle  me  under  roses.’ 

The  reflections  showed  a just  judgment.  But,  coming  at  such 
a time,  they  showed,  too,  a man  old,  tired,  and  at  the  end  of  his 
tether.  Tronchin  had  long  said  that  to  survive  such  a life  as  he 
had  been  living  the  last  few  weeks,  his  body  must  be  made  of  steel. 


Mr.  84] 


THE  LAST  VISIT 


509 


Long  and  bitterly  discussed,  but  this  ‘ next  morning  ’ become 
a pressing  and  imminent  question,  was  the  return  to  Ferney.  To 
go — or  to  stay?  On  the  one  side  were  Villette  and  Madame 
Denis.  They  were  not  the  rose,  but  it  was  delightful  to  live  near 
the  rose.  The  one,  despite  the  good  and  pretty  wife,  had  already 
been  drawn  back  again  into  the  vile  dissipations  of  the  capital. 
The  other  was  not  only  out  at  entertainments  all  day,  but  at  sixty- 
eight  was  coyly  coquetting  with  her  Duvivier. 

In  the  second  camp  was  Wagniere,  who,  besides  having  left 
home,  wife,  and  children  at  Ferney,  was  sincerely  devoted  to  his 
master’s  real  good  ; the  judicious,  clear-seeing  d’Alembert,  young 
Dupuits,  and  above  all,  Dr.  Tronchin.  Fearless  and  upright,  the 
great  doctor  made  one  last  passionate  appeal  to  his  patient  to  go 
while  there  was  time.  4 1 would  give  a hundred  louis  to  see  you 
back  at  Ferney.  Go  in  a week.’ 

‘ Am  I fit  to  travel  ? ’ says  the  poor  old  Patriarch. 

‘ I will  stake  my  head  on  it,’  says  Tronchin. 

The  thin  trembling  hand  grasped  the  strong  one. 

‘ You  have  given  me  back  my  life.’ 

Voltaire  was  so  much  moved  that  the  serene  Tronchin,  nay, 
the  very  cook  who  happened  to  be  in  the  room  at  the  same 
moment,  was  moved  too. 

Tronchin  wrote  off  immediately  to  Ferney  for  Voltaire’s 
coachman  and  carriage.  Madame  Denis’s  vociferous  indignation 
was  wasted  on  him.  Little  Madame  Suard,  the  sprightly  visitor 
of  Ferney,  must  have  been  as  delighted  as  all  others  who  put 
Voltaire’s  life  above  their  own  pleasure.  She  came  to  see  her  old 
host.  ‘ We  shall  kill  him,’  she  said,  ‘ if  he  stays  here.’ 

But  Madame  Denis  was  not  going  back  to  the  dismal  solitude 
and  the  ice  and  snow  of  Ferney  without  a fight.  Is  it  the  Villette 
house  you  do  not  like  ? She  hurried  out,  and  nearly  took  one  in 
the  Faubourg  Saint-Honore,  with  a beautiful  garden  where  Uncle 
Voltaire  could  fancy  himself  in  the  country.  The  negotiations 
for  it  fell  through.  But  there  is  what  might  be  made  a very 
fine  house  in  the  Rue  Richelieu,  and  which  has  the  enormous 
advantage  of  being  quite  close  to  the  home  of  your  butterfly 
philosopher,  Madame  Saint- Julien  ! Voltaire  at  eighty-four,  and 
with,  as  he  pointed  out  to  his  every  correspondent,  at  least  two 
mortal  complaints,  actually  consented  to  buy  this  unfinished 


510 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1778 


house.  He  would  live  there  eight  months  of  the  year,  and  the 
other  four  at  Ferney.  Still,  those  other  four  were  to  be  taken  at 
once.  He  would  go  now — soon ! If  he  could  go,  that  is.  But 
had  he  not  just  been  elected  to  three  months’  Presidency  of  the 
Academy  ? His  vacillations  were  the  despair  of  Tronchin — ay, 
and  the  despair  of  himself.  He  longed  to  go,  but  he  could  not 
go.  Madame  Denis,  with  the  most  limitless  capacity  for  nagging 
ever  vouchsafed  to  mortal  woman,  volubly  assured  him  that  in- 
fluential friends  had  told  her  that  if  he  did  go,  he  would  never 
be  allowed  to  return. 

True,  on  April  2 ‘ Irene  ’ had  been  performed  at  Court.  That 
did  not  look  like  a new  edict  of  banishment.  But  then  the 
author  had  not  been  asked  to  see  his  play.  Perhaps  that  did  ? 
Then  it  was  said  the  Queen  herself  had  had  an  idea  of  slipping 
into  the  theatre  on  that  great  80th  of  March  to  see  the  crowning 
of  the  people’s  King — only — only — the  other  King  had  peremp- 
torily forbidden  her.  A dog  Voltaire  had  been  fond  of  at  Ferney 
came  to  Paris  with  one  of  the  Ferney  servants  and  bounded  in  to 
lick  his  master’s  hand  with  the  touching,  dumb  joy  of  animal 
affection.  4 You  see  I am  still  beloved  at  Ferney,’  says  the  old 
man.  Villette  and  Madame  Denis  took  very  good  care  that  that 
dog  should  never  enter  the  house  again.  They  tried  to  get  rid  of 
Wagniere — his  influence  was  so  bad  and  so  powerful.  They 
failed  in  this.  But,  after  all,  they  succeeded  in  their  main  object. 

When  a man’s  foes  are  those  of  his  own  household,  resistance 
is  peculiarly  difficult. 

‘ I have  seen  a great  many  fools,’  Tronchin  wrote  on  April  6, 
‘ but  never  such  an  old  fool  as  he  is.’ 

The  exhaustion  consequent  on  his  crowning  had  passed  away. 
With  it  passed  away,  too,  the  idea  of  an  immediate  return  to 
Ferney. 

By  that  day,  April  6,  the  1 old  fool  ’ was  well  enough  to  go  on 
foot,  in  spite  of  adoring  crowds,  to  the  Academy. 

A seller  of  books  on  the  way  naively  begged  him  ‘ to  write  me 
some  and  my  fortune  will  be  made.’  4 You  have  made  so  many 
other  people  rich ! Write  me  some  books.  I am  a poor  woman.’ 
Among  the  people  he  heard  himself  often  called  by  that  name 
which  was  a sweeter  flattery  to  his  soul  than  all  odes  and  plaudits 
— ‘ the  man  of  Calas.’ 


HCt.  84] 


THE  LAST  VISIT 


511 


The  next  day  he  was  made  a Freemason,  and  in  the  evening 
went  to  see  the  unacknowledged  actress-wife  of  the  Duke  of 
Orleans. 

On  April  11  he  returned  Madame  du  Deffand’s  visit.  She 
forgave  him  for  not  coming  before  ; but  the  Convent  of  St.  Joseph, 
in  which  she  lived,  found  it  hard  to  forgive  him  for  coming  at  all 
and  profaning  their  holy  place  with  his  presence.  He  paid  other 
visits.  One  old  friend,  the  Comtesse  de  Segur,  was  dying  when 
he  saw  her.  For  a little,  the  charm  of  his  reminiscences  brought 
back  to  her  their  youth.  When  he  visited  her  again,  remembering 
only  that  he,  like  herself,  stood  on  the  brink  of  eternity,  she 
passionately  conjured  him  to  cease  his  ‘ war  against  religion.’  He 
turned  upon  her  fiercely,  forgetting  her  womanhood  and  her 
dying.  That  stern,  terse  creed  he  had  hammered  and  forged  for 
himself  was  as  dear  to  him  as  was  to  her  the  fuller  faith  she  had 
accepted  without  trouble  or  thought.  The  room  was  full  of  people. 
The  guests  paused  to  listen.  Voltaire  remembered  himself : 
offered  sympathy,  suggested  remedies,  and  left,  greatly  moved. 

Another  visit  was  yet  more  pathetic.  He  went  to  see  Egerie 
de  Livri,  once  the  vivacious  poor  companion  of  the  Duchesse  de 
Sully  and  would-be  actress,  and  now  the  Marquise  de  Gouvernet. 
In  this  withered  old  woman  of  eighty-three  what  traces  were 
there  of  the  brilliant  girl  to  whom  a Voltaire  of  five-and- twenty 
had  taught  declamation  and  love,  who  had  gaily  forgotten  him  for 
de  Genonville,  and  graciously  remembered  him  when  he  had 
immortalised  her  in  ‘ Les  Vous  et  Les  Tu  ’ ? Above  him,  on 
the  wall,  smiled  the  picture  he  had  given  her — his  dead  self, 
by  Largilliere.  A ghost ! A ghost ! He  left  her,  profoundly 
saddened.  She  sent  the  portrait  to  him  at  the  Hotel  Villette,  and 
he  gave  it  to  Belle-et-Bonne. 

Another  friend  came  to  see  him  one  morning — Longchamp — 
from  whom  he  had  parted  eight-and-twenty  years  ago,  and  with 
whom  were  connected  many  memories,  of  the  Court  and  of  Paris, 
of  Cirey  and  Madame  du  Chatelet. 

If  the  man  had  cheated  his  master,  he  had  loved  him  too. 
The  things  are  not  incompatible. 

These  meetings  made  the  old  heart  yearn  again  for  quiet  and 
Ferney.  But  there  was  still  so  much  to  do  ! 

Besides  his  plays  to  be  corrected  and  personally  supervised  in 


512 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1778 


rehearsal,  a new  grand  scheme  had  been  filling  his  mind,  quicken- 
ing his  last  energies,  bringing  back  the  resolute  passion  of  his 
youth. 

On  April  27  he  attended  a seance  at  the  Academy.  Abbe 
Delille  read  a translation  of  Pope’s  4 Epistle  to  Arbuthnot.’ 
Well,  one  Academician  had  known  the  thing  in  the  original  and 
the  author  in  the  flesh.  He  sat  and  listened  attentively.  Then 
he  got  up.  An  admirable  translation,  gentlemen.  But  our 
language  is,  after  all,  poor — poorer  than  it  need  be  in  poetic 
expression.  Why,  for  instance,  should  we  not  call  an  actor 
who  plays  tragedy,  a tragedian  ? And  why — why  should  this 
Academy  not  undertake  the  reconstruction  of  the  French  Dic- 
tionary ? The  one  we  have  is  unworthy  of  us — dull,  inadequate, 
impossible.  The  Academy  is  called  the  lawgiver  of  language 
to  the  people  of  France.  Let  rt  worthily  prove  itself  so ! The 
work  shall  not  only  be  useful,  but  patriotic.  Each  member 
shall  take  a letter.  As  for  me,  gentlemen,  I am  willing  to,  conse- 
crate to  such  a task  the  brief  remainder  of  my  days.  The  old 
man  spoke  with  the  fire  and  the  vigour  of  youth.  Some  of  his 
auditors  were  incompetent  for  the  task  he  proposed  to  them ; 
many  were  lazy  and  apathetic. 

But  the  octogenarian  who  had  suggested  it  went  home  with 
his  soul  on  fire,  drew  paper  and  pen  towards  him,  and  began, 
through  domestic  disturbance  and  the  ceaseless  round  of  visits,  to 
elaborate  his  scheme. 

Two  days  later  he  received  an  ovation  from  the  Academy  of 
Sciences.  D’Alembert  read  a Eulogy,  written  by  Condorcet,  of 
Trudain,  Councillor  of  State,  who  had  helped  Voltaire  with  his 
colony  at  Ferney.  To  eulogise  Voltaire  himself  fo]  lowed  in 
natural  sequence.  Franklin  was  there  too.  Old  Voltaire  spoke 
to  him.  4 Embrace  in  the  French  fashion  ! ’ cried  a voice  : and 
they  did. 

At  the  end  of  April  it  was  decided  that  Wagniere  should  leave 
for  Ferney,  to  get  there  papers  and  books  of  which  Voltaire  had 
need.  It  was  a bitter  parting.  The  servant  had  done  his  best  to 
make  his  master  go  with  him.  But  Tronchin  was  not  always  at 
his  side,  and  Denis  and  Villette  were.  Then  there  were  his  plays 
still  needing  correction.  And  now  that  Dictionary  scheme, 
so  hotly  resolved  upon — how  to  abandon  that  ? Then,  too,  the 


JEt.  84] 


THE  LAST  VISIT 


513 


Abb6  Beauregard  had  preached  in  glowing  vituperation  at 
Versailles  against  all  the  philosophers,  and  one  philosopher  in 
particular.  The  kingly  party,  as  well  as  the  ecclesiastical,  was 
mad  to  hound  this  Voltaire  out  of  Paris. 

There  had  been  many  times  in  his  life  when  he  had  perforce 
to  turn  his  back  on  the  enemy  and  fly.  But  those  had  gone  by 
for  ever. 

On  April  27  he  signed  the  contract  of  purchase  for  the  new 
house  in  the  Rue  Richelieu. 

On  the  29th,  Wagniere  left.  Both  knew  the  parting  was  their 
last.  But  neither  could  face  the  fact. 

Life  went  on  with  a madder  rush  when  the  secretary  had 
gone.  Visits  succeeded  to  visits.  One  ovation  brought  another. 
All  the  mots  the  Patriarch  uttered  (and  numbers  he  did  not)  were 
recorded  in  the  newspapers.  His  every  action  was  noted — his 
very  motives  guessed.  Through  all  he  was  working  feverishly — 
without  the  invaluable  help  of  Wagniere  and  with  his  strength 
kept  up  by  drugs — on  that  scheme  for  the  Dictionary. 

It  was  ready  by  May  7.  He  went  to  the  Academy.  Upon 
some  of  the  brethren  at  least — they  were  almost  all  young 
enough  to  be  his  grandsons — had  fallen  that  fatal  mental  inertia, 
that  deadly  sleep  which  paralysed  the  brains  of  half  aristocratic 
France  just  before  the  Revolution.  Nothing  matters  ! Nothing 
is  worth  while  ! With  eyes  and  heart  aglow,  this  old  Voltaire 
read  aloud  his  brief  and  masterly  plan.  It  remains  that  upon 
which  all  great  dictionaries  in  Europe  and  America  have  been 
modelled  to  this  day. 

He  recommended  it  with  a zeal  of  which  he  alone  was  capable. 
Tronchin  speaks  of  it  as  his  ‘ last  dominant  idea,  his  last  passion.’ 
If  he  had  been  a boy  of  twenty,  with  name  and  fortune  to  make 
by  this  Dictionary  alone,  he  could  not  have  been  more  eager.  In 
the  end  he  obtained  a unanimous  consent  to  his  scheme.  But  it 
was  cool — cool ! He  insisted  on  the  immediate  division  of  the 
letters  among  the  members.  He  himself  took  A.  It  meant  the 
most  work.  That  he  also  wrote  a part  of  T is  certain. 

One  old  member  reminded  him  of  his  age,  and  he  turned  upon 
him  in  reply  with 1 something  more  than  vivacity.’  The  stance  ended. 

‘ Gentlemen,’  says  old  Voltaire,  ‘ I thank  you  in  the  name  of 
the  alphabet.* 


514  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1778 

‘ And  we,’  replied  Chastellux,  ‘ thank  you  in  the  name  of 
letters.’ 

That  evening  Voltaire  was  present  incognito  at  the  perform- 
ance of  ‘Alzire.’  Of  course  he  was  recognised.  For  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  the  howls  of  applause  never  ceased.  Then  he 
himself  begged  silence  from  the  house.  As  he  left  it,  the  people, 
pressing  on  him,  thrust  odes  of  inflammatory  flattery  into  his 
hand.  This  mob  was  enthusiastic  enough.  But  those  Acade- 
micians, his  brothers,  with  all  the  world  to  conquer — their  apathy 
lay  heavily  on  his  soul.  If  death  came  to  him,  the  only  young 
man  of  them  all,  would  they  go  on  with  his  scheme  ? He  doubted 
them.  ‘ They  are  sluggards,’  he  said  passionately  to  Tronchin, 
‘ who  wallow  in  idleness  ; but  I will  make  them  march.’  He 
must  write  them  a Discourse  to  sting  them  and  shame  them. 
No  man  in  the  world  had  so  much  and  so  ably  used  the  fine, 
pliant,  delicate  machinery  of  the  French  language,  as  he  had. 
In  the  most  perfect  French  in  the  world  he  had  alike  coquetted 
with  women  in  drawing-rooms  and  spoken  his  great  message  to 
the  race.  He  loved  the  tool  with  which  he  had  carved  immortal 
work.  The  day  was  not  long  enough  to  say  what  he  had  to  say 
upon  the  language  he  had  adorned.  Far  on  into  the  night — 
brain  and  nerve  stimulated  by  strong  coffee — he  wrote  on  the 
subject  that  possessed  his  soul.  The  sleep  he  had  banished 
deserted  him  now  when  he  called  it.  He  wrote  on.  There  was 
so  little  time  ! There  was  so  much  to  do  ! Not  afraid  of  death, 
but  of  dying  before  he  had  finished  his  work — that  description 
was  true  to  the  finest  shade  of  meaning.  The  coffee  aggravated 
the  internal  disease  from  which  he  suffered.  But  he  wrote  on. 
On  May  11  he  could  not  go  to  a meeting  of  the  Academy.  But 
he  could  still  write.  The  strong  sun  of  that  long  life  was  fast 
sinking  below  the  horizon,  and  the  night  coming  when  no  man 
can  work.  The  old  brain  nerved  itself  to  one  last  effort.  The 
old  hand  wrote  on. 

‘ Whoso  fears  God,  fears  to  sit  at  ease.’ 

Doubtful  in  morals,  and  a most  trenchant  unbeliever,  the 
scoffer  Voltaire  yet  sets  a splendid  example  to  all  inert  Christians 
who,  comfortably  cultivating  the  selfish  virtues,  care  nothing  for 
the  race  and  recognise  no  mission  but  to  save  their  own  miser- 
able souls. 


Mt.  84] 


THE  LAST  VISIT 


515 


Who  has  done  more  good  for  the  world — the  stainless 
anchorite,  be  his  cloister  a religious  one  or  his  own  easy  home ; 
or  this  sinner,  of  whom  it  was  said  at  his  death,  with  literal  truth, 
that  the  history  of  what  had  been  accomplished  in  Europe  in 
favour  of  reason  and  humanity  was  the  history  of  his  writings 
and  of  his  deeds  ? ’ 


L L 2 


516 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1877 


CHAPTER  XLIV 

THE  END 

The  accounts  of  the  dying  of  Voltaire  would  fill  a volume. 
Round  this  great  deathbed  were  gathered  persons  who  each  had 
a different  end  to  serve  by  differently  describing  it. 

Villette  wanted  to  prove  himself  the  wise  and  unselfish  friend  ; 
and  Madame  Denis  must  appear  the  tenderly  devoted  niece. 

The  Abb6  Depery  published  an  awful  description  of  these  last 
moments,  which  he  declares  he  heard  from  Belle-et-Bonne.  She 
was  dead  when  he  made  the  statement ; and  ‘ it  is  easy  to  make 
the  dead  speak.’  But  if  that  fearful  story  had  been  true,  this 
girl,  who  passionately  loved  her  more  than  father  and  dedicated 
the  remainder  of  her  days  to  his  memory,  would  hardly  have 
repeated  it.  Lady  Morgan,  who  saw  her  in  Paris  forty  years 
later,  declares  that  she  spoke  of  the  dying  man’s  peace,  tran- 
quillity, and  resignation. 

D’Alembert,  Grimm,  and  Condorcet  naturally  wished  to  see 
a death,  firm,  consistent,  and  philosophic : and  they  saw  it. 

Dr.  Tronchin,  the  sincere  Christian,  would  fain  have  beheld 
a repentant  sinner.  Failing  that,  what  could  he  see  but  the 
‘ frightful  torme  nt  ’of  the  wicked  to  whom  Death  is  the  King  of 
Terrors,  4 the  furies  of  Orestes,’  the  sc&va  indignatio  of  Swift  ? 

Gaultier  naturally  did  not  wish  to  own  that  he  had  missed  so 
illustrious  a conversion.  He  did  not  own  it : he  said  the  convert’s 
mind  was  wandering. 

But,  after  all,  it  matters  not  how  one  dies,  but  how  one  has 
lived.  Deathbed  utterances,  even  if  truly  reported,  are  to  be 
attributed  less  to  the  illumined  soul  than  to  the  diseased  body. 
If  at  last  the  horrors  of  the  Great  Change  and  the  awful  prospect 
of  the  unknown  Eternity  overwhelmed  this  unbeliever,  as  at  such 
an  hour  they  have  overwhelmed  many  sincere  Christians,  that 


M t.  84] 


THE  END 


517 


fact  is  no  confession  that  Voltaire  gave  the  lie  to  the  convictions 
of  his  life. 

For  more  than  sixty  years  they  had  been  those  not  of  a man 
in  the  careless  vigour  of  health,  or  of  a thoughtless  profligate,  or 
of  an  indifferent,  but  of  one  who  had  always  known  his  tenure  of 
life  to  be  frail ; who  had  realised  the  consolations  of  the  religion  he 
could  not  believe,  and  yearned  for  that  faith  he  could  never  have. 

If,  at  the  last,  his  priestly  counsellors  did  succeed  in  terrifying 
the  old  dying  mind,  enfeebled  by  the  dying  body,  by  their  threats 
of  Judgment  and  Eternity,  what  use  to  his  soul,  or  the  cause  of 
their  Christianity  ? 

It  is  the  eighty-four  years  of  vigorous  life  and  passionate  utter- 
ance that  count  before  God  and  man,  and  not  the  dying  minutes. 

Out  of  lies  innumerable,  then — some  witnesses  took  their 
testimony  of  the  deathbed  of  Voltaire  from  the  cook  of  the  Hotel 
Villette — the  following  account  has  been  sifted. 

On  some  day,  which  was  either  May  12  or  shortly  after  it,  the 
old  man  met  Madame  Denis  and  Madame  Saint-Julien  when  he 
was  out  walking. 

He  said  he  was  ill  and  going  to  bed.  Two  hours  later  his 
good  Butterfly  came  to  see  him.  She  found  him  very  feverish, 
and  begged  that  Tronchin  might  be  sent  for. 

Madame  Denis,  remembering  the  Doctor’s  counsels,  declined 
to  summon  him. 

The  patient  grew  worse.  Villette  sent  for  a local  apothecary, 
who  came  with  medicine  which  the  sick  man  was  at  first  too  wise 
to  take.  But  he  was  ill  and  old,  and  Madame  Denis  was  nag- 
gingly  persistent.  He  took,  not  enough  said  Madame  Denis  ; too 
much  said  Madame  Saint-Julien,  who  tasted  it.  Anyhow,  he 
grew  worse.  That  evening  old  Bichelieu  came  to  see  him  and 
recommended  a remedy — laudanum — which  he  had  himself  been 
in  the  habit  of  taking  for  the  gout. 

With  the  night  the  patient’s  sufferings  increased.  He  sent 
for  the  laudanum. 

Madame  Saint-Julien  and  a relative  (most  likely  d’Hornoy), 
who  were  there  when  it  came,  implored  caution.  The  audacious 
ignorance  of  Madame  Denis  had  no  fears. 

Wagniere,  who  of  course  was  not  present,  declares  that  his 
master  characteristically  seized  the  remedy  and  took  too  much, 


518 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1778 


too  often.  D’Alembert — the  notoriously  truthful — says  that  he 
never  took  any  : the  bottle  was  broken.  However  that  may  be, 
he  grew  alarmingly  worse. 

At  last  Dr.  Tronchin  was  called.  But  the  patient  was  already 
past  human  aid.  Suffering  agonies  from  his  internal  disease,  a 
fearful  and  most  exhausting  nausea,  all  the  torments  of  ruined 
nerves  and  exhausted  brain,  and  unable  to  eat  or  sleep,  the  old 
man  could  still  turn  to  the  good  physician  and  apologise  to  him 
for  the  liberty  he  had  taken  with  his  dying  body.  Tronchin  had 
been  right ! He  should  have  gone  back  to  Ferney. 

Often  and  often  he  called  for  Wagniere.  By  his  side,  always 
one  may  hope,  was  the  good  and  gentle  woman  he  had  married 
to  Villette.  Constantly  in  and  out  of  the  sick  room  were  a 
motley  crowd — Madame  Denis,  Abb6  Mignot,  d’Hornoy,  Lorry, 
Villette  himself,  besides  Tronchin  and  a servant,  Morand. 

On  May  16  the  poor  old  man  revived  a little.  To  this  day 
belong  the  last  verses  of  the  easiest  and  most  limpid  verse-writer 
of  all  time.  They  were  written  in  reply  to  some  lines  of  the 
Abb6  Attaignant,  and  appeared  in  the  ‘ Journal  de  Paris.’  To 
them  the  dying  writer  added  a few  piteous  words  in  prose.  1 1 
can  do  no  more,  Monsieur.  . . . The  mind  is  too  much  affected 
by  the  torments  of  the  body.’ 

On  May  25  d’Hornoy  wrote  to  Wagniere  urging  his  instant 
return.  The  patient  was  kept  alive  only  by  spoonfuls  of  jelly ; 
and  his  exhaustion  and  feebleness  were  terrible. 

By  the  next  day  the  watchers  had  abandoned  all  hope.  He 
revived,  indeed,  to  hear  the  news  of  the  vindication  of  Lally. 
That  would  have  roused  him  from  the  dead.  He  dictated  his 
last  letter.  For  the  moment,  joy  made  mind  triumph  over 
matter,  as  it  had  done  with  this  man  all  his  life  long.  But  his 
doctors  could  not  be  deceived.  He  was  dying. 

One  of  them  was  watching  anxiously  now  for  the  signs  of 
that  repentance  he  longed  for.  ‘ Religious  toleration,  the  most 
difficult  conquest  to  wring  from  the  prejudices  and  passions  of 
men,’  Voltaire  had  not  been  able  to  wring  from  one  of  the  best- 
friends  he  ever  had.  Tronchin  wrote  bitterly  of  this  deathbed 
In  his  zeal  for  some  proof,  some  confession  of  the  fallacy  of  that 
stern  creed  of  negation,  since  called  Voltairism,  the  great  Doctor 
almost  forgot  his  compassion  and  his  friendship. 


JEt.  84] 


THE  END 


519 


D’Alembert  records  that  on  May  28  Mignot  went  to  fetch 
de  Tersac. 

De  Tersac  replied  to  the  effect  that  it  was  no  use  visiting  a 
man  whose  reason  was  already  dimmed,  but  that  unless  he  made 
a far  fuller  and  more  orthodox  profession  of  faith  than  he  had 
yet  made,  he  would  not  accord  him  Christian  burial. 

Mignot,  himself  a personage,  a member  of  the  Grand  Council 
and  the  head  of  an  abbey,  threatened  to  apply  to  the  Parliament 
for  justice.  De  Tersac  replied  that  he  could  do  as  he  pleased. 

For  two  days  more,  Voltaire  lingered — sometimes  quite  un- 
conscious, but  sometimes  wholly  sensible.  On  the  morning  of 
Saturday,  May  80,  Gaultier  again  wrote  to  him  offering  his 
services. 

At  six  o’clock  in  the  evening  of  that  day,  Mignot  fetched 
Gaultier  and  de  Tersac. 

D’Alembert  told  Frederick  the  Great  that  de  Tersac  approached 
Voltaire,  saying  loudly  1 Jesus  Christ ! ’ and  that  Voltaire,  rousing 
a little  from  his  stupor,  made  a motion  with  his  hand — ‘ Let  me 
die  in  peace.’ 

Grimm  and  La  Harpe  tell  the  same  story  with  unimportant 
variations.  It  may  be  true.  ‘ Spare  me  three  things,’  said 
Madame  du  Deffand  on  her  deathbed — perhaps  remembering  Vol- 
taire’s— ‘ Let  me  have  no  questions,  no  arguments,  and  no  sermons.’ 

Saint- Sulpice  thought,  or  said  that  he  thought,  Voltaire  too 
ill  to  make  a confession.  The  persons  about  the  bed  took  no 
pains  to  contradict  him. 

At  nine  o’clock  in  the  evening  the  priests  left.  For  three 
hours  Voltaire  was  dying — calmly  and  peacefully,  say  some  ; in  ‘ all 
the  terrors  of  the  damned,’  say  others.  But  the  truth,  none  knows. 

Ten  minutes  before  he  died  he  took  Morand’s  hand.  4 Fare- 
well, my  dear  Morand.  I am  dying.’  He  never  spoke  again. 

At  a quarter-past  eleven  on  the  evening  of  Saturday,  May  80, 
1778,  in  the  eighty-fourth  year  of  his  age,  died  Francis  Marie 
Arouet  de  Voltaire. 

His  relatives  had  concealed  the  dangerous  nature  of  his  illness 
from  the  world.  Madame  Denis  had  written,  even  to  Wagniere, 
and  as  late  as  May  26,  a letter  of  pretended  hopefulness.  King, 
priests,  and  prejudice  were  strong.  Mignot  and  d’Hornoy  knew 
well  that  it  would  be  necessary  to  act  cautiously,  and  to  act  at 


520  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1778 

once.  They  had  been  professionally  advised  not  to  contest  at 
law  the  question  of  burial. 

From  de  Tersac  they  obtained  a formal  consent  in  writing 
that  the  body  of  Voltaire  might  be  removed  without  ceremony. 
‘ I relinquish  to  that  end  all  parochial  rights.’ 

Gaultier  declared,  also  in  writing,  that  he  had  been  to  Voltaire  at 
his  request,  and  found  him  ‘ not  in  a state  to  be  heard  in  confession.’ 

On  the  night  of  May  80  the  body  was  embalmed.  The  heart 
was  taken  out  and  given  by  Madame  Denis  to  Villette. 

Early  in  the  morning  of  Sunday,  May  81,  Mignot,  taking 
with  him  the  two  priests’  declarations  and  Voltaire’s  confession 
of  faith  made  a few  weeks  before,  left  Paris  in  a post-chaise  for 
his  Abbey  of  Scellieres,  at  Romilly-on- Seine,  in  Champagne,  one 
hundred  and  ten  miles  from  Paris. 

On  the  same  evening,  when  the  capital  was  dark  and  the 
streets  deserted,  two  other  carriages  left  the  Hotel  Villette.  In 
one  was  the  body  of  the  dead  man,  dressed,  and  lying  on  the  seat 
like  a sleeping  traveller.  A servant  was  also  in  the  carriage.  In 
the  next  came  d’Hornoy  and  two  distant  cousins  of  Voltaire,  who, 
after  Mignot,  were  his  nearest  male  relatives.  This  dreadful 
cortege  1 stopped  at  no  inn,  alighted  at  no  post-house.’ 

At  midday  on  June  1 it  reached  Scellieres.  The  Abb6  Mignot 
had  obtained,  on  the  strength  of  the  clerical  certificates  and 
Voltaire’s  written  profession  of  faith,  the  consent  of  his  prior 
that  the  great  man  should  be  buried  there. 

At  three  o’clock  in  the  afternoon  the  body  was  laid  in  the 
choir,  and  vespers  for  the  dead  were  sung  over  it.  It  remained 
there  all  night,  surrounded  by  torches. 

Early  the  next  morning,  June  2,  before  many  of  the  assembled 
clergy  of  the  district  whom  the  prior  had  summoned,  Voltaire 
was  buried  with  full  rites  and  the  honourable  and  decent  burial 
he  had  desired. 

Only  a small  stone  marked  his  resting-place,  with  the  bald 
inscription  ‘Here  lies  Voltaire.’ 

After  all,  he  needed  no  epitaphs.  He  had  avenged  the  op- 
pressed and  enlightened  the  ignorant. 

On  June  3,  the  bishop  of  the  diocese  sent  a mandate  forbidding 
the  burial.  It  was  too  late.  On  that  day  Mignot  and  the  other 
relatives  returned  to  Paris. 


1778] 


THE  END 


521 


The  city  had  heard  of  Voltaire’s  death  by  now : the  devout 
with  exultation,  the  philosophers  with  profound  grief.  The 
authorities  had,  indeed,  forbidden  the  newspapers  to  publish  any 
obituary  notice  of  Voltaire  or  even  to  mention  his  decease.  At 
the  theatre  no  piece  written  by  him  was  to  be  played  for  twenty- 
one  days.  The  Academy  was  forbidden  to  hold  the  service  at  the 
Cordeliers  customary  on  the  death  of  a member. 

But  these  restrictions  of  a petty  tyranny  had  the  effect  of  all 
such  restrictions — the  exact  opposite  to  what  was  intended. 

The  heart  of  Paris  would  have  throbbed  the  quicker  for  a 
Voltaire’s  death  in  any  case.  But  for  those  prohibitions  it 
throbbed  with  indignation  too. 

4 You  are  right,  Saint- Sulpice,’  said  one  of  many  bitter  epi- 
grams the  occasion  produced.  ‘ Why  bury  him  ? . . . Refuse  a 
tomb,  but  not  an  altar.’ 

In  this  June  following  his  death,  his  will,  made  at  Ferney  in 
September  1776,  was  proved.  Terse,  lucid,  and  able,  it  is  charac- 
teristic of  the  man  who  wrote  it.  Voltaire  appointed  Madame 
Denis  his  residuary  legatee.  To  Mignot  and  d’Hornoy  he  left 
one  hundred  thousand  francs  each  ; to  Wagniere,  eight  thousand 
livres ; to  Madame  Wagniere  and  Bonne-Baba,  his  clothes,  and 
to  Bonne-Baba  eight  hundred  livres  as  well.  Each  servant  was 
to  have  a year’s  wages.  To  Rieu,  that  ex- American  officer,  were 
left  such  English  books  from  the  library  as  he  might  choose  : to 
the  poor  of  the  parish  of  Ferney — ‘ if  there  are  any  poor  ’ — three 
hundred  livres  ; and  to  the  cure  a diamond,  five  hundred  livres 
in  value.  Voltaire  also  appointed  fifteen  hundred  francs  to  be 
given  to  the  lawyer  who  was  to  help  Madame  Denis  in  the  execu- 
tion of  his  will. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  legacies  to  the  servants,  and  par- 
ticularly to  faithful  Wagniere,  were  very  small.  Hoping  against 
the  knowledge  he  had  of  her  character,  Voltaire  had  supposed 
that  Madame  Denis  would  continue  his  generosity  towards  them. 
Wagniere,  true  to  his  master’s  person  and  honour  in  life,  was  true 
to  his  memory  after  death.  He  uttered  not  a word  of  complaint. 

In  the  August  of  1778  d’Alembert  chose  Voltaire  as  the 
subject  for  the  prize  poem  of  the  Academy ; and  until  his  own 
death,  five  years  later,  never  ceased  to  work  for  the  posthumous 
glory  of  the  man  he  had  loved. 


522 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


[1778 


The  once  false  La  Harpe  also  eulogised  Voltaire,  and  wrote  a 
play  in  his  honour  ; and  the  scholarly  Condorcet  wrote  his  Life. 

But  it  was  not  Paris  alone  which  did  homage  to  this  great- 
ness. If  ever  man  had  been  a citizen  of  the  world,  Voltaire  had 
been. 

On  November  26,  1778,  Frederick  the  Great,  now  President 
of  his  own  Academy,  read  to  it  Voltaire's  Eulogium.  It  is  a 
most  generous  testimony  to  the  character  of  that  brilliant, 
irritable,  and  delightful  child  of  genius  whom  the  great  King  had 
so  hotly  loved  and  loathed.  As  an  appreciation  of  his  works,  it 
is  worthless.  Frederick  the  Great  was  no  literary  critic.  But  it 
poured  burning  contempt  on  the  ‘ imbecile  priests  ’ of  Paris 
who  had  refused  such  a man  the  last  offices  of  the  dead,  and 
not  all  the  authorities  in  the  world  could  keep  it  out  of  their 
capital. 

In  the  May  of  the  following  year,  to  shame  those  ‘ imbecile 
priests  ’ the  deeper,  although  he  had,  as  he  put  it,  no  idea  of  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  himself,  Frederick  had  a mass  for  Vol- 
taire’s said  in  the  Roman  church  at  Berlin.  A little  later  the 
faithful  and  persevering  d’Alembert  proposed  that  that  King 
should  erect  a statue  to  his  friend  in  that  same  church.  Frede- 
rick did  not  see  his  way  to  this.  He  had  in  his  own  possession 
a finer  monument  to  Voltaire’s  greatness — a part  of  that  corre- 
spondence which  is  one  of  Arouet’s  ‘ surest  titles  to  immortality  ’ 
and  contains  at  once  ‘ the  history  of  Voltaire  intime  and  of  the 
eighteenth  century.’ 

No  one  had  mourned  Voltaire  more  passionately  than  the 
other  great  sovereign,  Catherine.  ‘ Since  he  is  dead,  wit  has 
lost  its  honour ; he  was  the  divinity  of  gaiety.’  To  her,  he  had 
been  much  more  than  that.  He  had  ‘ formed  her  mind  and  her 
head.’ 

He  had  left  his  library,  except  its  English  books,  with  his 
other  effects,  to  Madame  Denis.  In  the  December  of  1778 
Catherine  completed  the  purchase  of  those  6,210  volumes  with 
their  copious  marginal  notes,  with  manuscripts,  original  letters, 
and  papers  concerning  the  trials  in  which  Voltaire  had  been  en- 
gaged. Some  months  later  she  sent  for  Wagniere  to  arrange 
them.  When  he  had  finished  his  work,  she  came  to  look  at  it. 
Bowing  before  Voltaire’s  statue  she  said,  ‘ There  is  the  man  to 


1778] 


THE  END 


523 


whom  I owe  all  I know  and  all  I am.’  Hearing  that  Wagniere 
was  poorly  provided  for,  she  magnificently  gave  him  a pension 
for  life.  He  visited  Frederick,  and  returned  to  live  and  die  at 
Ferney.  One  of  Voltaire’s  editors,  passing  through  that  village 
in  1825,  found  the  secretary’s  son  still  living  there — a Justice  of 
the  Peace. 

To  get  rid  of  her  uncle’s  library  was  for  Madame  Denis  but 
to  free  herself  of  one  useless  encumbrance.  There  was  another. 
What  was  the  use  of  Ferney  to  such  a woman  ? Ice  and  snow, 
weavers  and  watchmakers,  country,  retirement,  solitude — she 
hated  them  all.  Her  uncle’s  poor  people  had  never  been  any- 
thing to  her — except  when  they  feted  and  made  much  of  her  on 
a birthday.  Eeturn  to  them  ? Never.  She  sold  Ferney  to 
Villette.  To  the  indignation  of  her  relations  and  of  the  whole 
Academy — particularly  d’Alembert,  who  was  as  jealous  for  dead 
Voltaire’s  honour  as  a mother  for  her  daughter’s  good  name — 
she  insisted  on  marrying  her  Duvivier.  It  is  a little  satisfactory 
to  learn  that  that  dull  person  (in  society  he  was  popularly  known 
as  the  Extinguisher)  avenged  Voltaire  by  bullying  the  woman 
who  had  bullied  him. 

Madame  Denis  never  had  any  interest  but  as  the  niece  of  her 
uncle.  With  his  death  she  fades  into  the  commonplace  obscurity 
for  which  she  was  made. 

The  Villettes  retired  to  Ferney.  In  her  old  home,  when  her 
husband  had  once  more  forgotten  the  fatal  attractions  of  the 
capital,  he  and  Belle-et-Bonne  lived  not  unhappily.  But  the 
weaving  and  watchmaking  industry  declined.  The  pilot  was  no 
longer  at  the  helm.  The  strong  hand  and  all-directing  brain 
which  had  turned  starving  idleness  to  affluent  industry,  and 
established  trade  on  a sound  business  basis,  were  no  longer  there 
to  hold  and  supervise.  Ferney  fell  back  into  the  nothingness 
from  which  a master-mind  had  drawn  it. 

Presently  Villette  became  heavily  inculpated  in  the  famous 
Guem^nee  bankruptcy  for  thirty-three  millions.  He  sold  Ferney, 
where  he  had  retained  Voltaire’s  rooms  as  they  had  been  at  the 
time  of  his  death,  and  where,  a cherished  possession,  he  had  kept 
the  dead  man’s  heart  enclosed  in  a silver  vase.  Husband  and 
wife  came  up  to  Paris  and  lived  in  the  Hotel  Villette,  where 
Belle-et-Bonne  continued  the  tender  charities  which  were  the 


524  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1779-84 

solace  of  her  life,  and  surrounded  herself  with  relics  and 
mementoes  of  her  dead  Voltaire. 

In  March  1779  M.  Ducis  was  installed  in  Voltaire’s  vacant 
chair  in  the  French  Academy.  According  to  custom,  he  read 
the  Eulogy  of  his  predecessor.  The  time  for  official  prohibitions 
was  past.  No  government  had  been  able  to  prevent  the  Hermit 
of  Ferney  being  known  to  the  whole  world  as  ‘ the  great  Vol- 
taire ’ for  many  years  before  his  death.  He  was  the  great 
Voltaire  still.  Grimm  declares  that  no  meeting  of  the  Academy 
ever  attracted  such  crowds.  When  some  clerical  member  dared 
to  suggest  that  all  expressions  contrary  to  religion  and  morals 
should  be  erased  by  some  friendly  hand  from  Voltaire’s  works, 
he  was  hissed  and  groaned  into  silence. 

On  the  first  anniversary  of  his  death,  ‘Agathocle,’  his  last 
tragedy,  still  incomplete,  was  performed  in  Paris,  with  a pro- 
logue by  d’Alembert. 

A complete  edition  of  Voltaire’s  works  appeared  in  1780. 

In  1784  there  were  secretly  circulating  in  Paris  the  ‘ Memoirs 
for  the  Life  of  Voltaire,’  written  by  himself  in  1759  and  reveng- 
ing himself  on  Frederick  for  Freytag  and  Frankfort  with  the 
most  cool  and  deadly  spite.  The  man  who  wrote  them,  in  that 
perfectly  easy  and  limpid  French  of  which  he  was  always  master 
even  when  he  was  by  no  means  master  of  himself,  had  never 
intended  them  to  be  published.  He  burnt  the  original  manu- 
script ; but  he  had  two  copies  made.  It  will  not  be  forgotten 
that  La  Harpe  and  Madame  Denis  were  dismissed  from  Ferney 
for  having  stolen  one  of  them.  One  became  the  property  of 
Catherine  the  Great.  The  other,  Madame  Denis,  remembering 
that  ‘ wearisome  niece  ’ and  the  ‘ Golden  Lion,’  sent  in  1788  to 
Beaumarchais,  then  editing  Voltaire’s  works.  He  did  not  dare  to 
include  the  ‘ Memoirs  ’ therein,  in  Frederick’s  lifetime.  But  they 
were  passed  from  hand  to  hand  in  Paris,  and  it  was  doubtless 
well  for  Voltaire’s  fame  that  Frederick  had  already  eulogised 
him  and  said  masses  for  the  peace  of  his  soul.  The  ‘ Memoirs  ’ 
are  now  always  included  in  Voltaire’s  works.  It  is  not,  all  things 
considered,  wholly  his  fault  that  many  people,  ignorant  of  the 
circumstances  under  which  it  was  drawn,  have  assumed  the 
malicious  caricature  of  Frederick  therein  contained  to  be  a 
faithful  portrait. 

For  thirteen  years  the  body  of  him  ‘ who  against  monks  had 


1784-91] 


THE  END 


525 


never  rested,  among  monks  rested  peacefully  ’ enough.  The 
Revolution  he  foresaw  had  come,  though  not  as  he  had  fore- 
seen it. 

His  ideal  of  government  had  been  a purified  and  constitutional 
monarchy,  but  always  a monarchy.  4 My  muscles  are  not  very 
flexible : I do  not  mind  making  one  bow,  but  a hundred  on  end 
would  fatigue  me.’  By  1790  Louis  XYI.  was  a king  only  in 
name.  In  that  year  the  Abbey  of  Scellieres,  with  all  other  re- 
ligious houses,  became  the  property  of  the  nation.  Villette  had 
not  merely  fallen  in  with  the  views  of  the  Revolution.  They  had 
been  his  when  such  convictions  were  dangerous  and  awkward, 
and  he  never  forgot  that  Prophet  of  Revolution,  Voltaire.  It 
was  through  Villette  that  the  Quai  de  Th6atins,  on  which  the 
Hotel  Villette  stood,  was  renamed  the  Quai  Voltaire. 

In  November  1790,  after  a performance  of  4 Brutus,'  Charles 
Villette,  ex-Marquis,  harangued  the  audience  and  passionately 
pleaded,  4 in  the  name  of  the  country,'  that  the  remains  of 
Voltaire  might  be  brought  to  Paris  and  honourably  buried.  4 This 
translation  will  be  the  dying  sigh  of  fanaticism.'  The  idea 
pleased  a people  agog  for  excitement  and  drunk  with  the  first  deep 
draughts  of  a liberty  which  for  centuries  they  had  not  been 
allowed  even  to  taste. 

On  June  1,  1791,  the  National  Assembly  made  Louis  XVI. 
sign  the  decree  which  ordained  that  the  ashes  of  his  great  enemy 
should  be  transferred  from  the  church  of  Romilly  to  that  of 
Sainte- Genevieve  in  Paris — Sainte- Genevieve,  which  was  hence- 
forth to  be  called  the  Pantheon  of  France. 

On  July  6 a funeral  car,  decked  with  laurels  and  oak  leaves, 
drawn  by  four  horses  and  escorted  by  a detachment  of  the 
National  Guard,  left  Romilly-on- Seine  and  began  its  solemn 
triumphal  progress  to  Paris.  On  the  front  of  the  car  was  written 
4 To  the  memory  of  Voltaire.'  On  one  side,  4 If  man  is  born 
free,  he  ought  to  govern  himself ' ; on  the  other,  4 If  man  has 
tyrants,  he  ought  to  dethrone  them.’ 

As  it  passed  through  the  villages,  the  villagers  came  out  to 
greet  it  with  wreaths  of  flowers  and  laurels  in  their  hands. 
Mothers  held  up  their  babies  that  they  too  might  say  that  they 
had  seen  this  great  day ; old  men  pressed  forward  to  touch  and  be 
healed.  At  night  the  villages  through  which  the  procession 
passed  were  illuminated ; by  day  could  be  seen  triumphal  arches, 


526 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTA IEE 


[1791 


girls  dressed  in  white,  and  garlands  of  flowers.  Out  of  their 
ignorance  and  wretchedness,  this  canaille  recognised  him  who  had 
wept  and  clamoured  for  the  rights  of  all  men  and  made  freedom 
a possibility  even  for  them. 

At  nightfall  on  July  10  the  cortege  reached  Paris.  The 
sarcophagus  was  placed  on  an  altar  on  the  ruins  of  that  tower  of 
the  Bastille  in  which  Voltaire  had  been  twice  a prisoner. 

On  the  altar  was  the  inscription,  1 On  this  spot,  where  des- 
potism chained  thee,  receive  the  homage  of  a free  people.’ 

All  Sunday  night  the  sarcophagus  remained  there.  At  three 
o’clock  on  the  sunny  afternoon  of  Monday,  July  11,  it  was  placed 
on  a car  designed  by  David,  and  drawn  through  Paris,  escorted 
by  an  enormous  company,  organised,  orderly,  and  representing 
every  rank  and  condition.  Here  were  the  men  who  had  de- 
molished the  Bastille,  carrying  its  flag,  and  in  their  midst  that 
terrible  virago  who  had  led  them  in  the  fray.  Here  were  citizens 
with  pikes,  Swiss,  Jacobins,  actors,  and  bodies  of  soldiers.  Some 
carried  banners  with  devices  from  the  dead  man’s  writings. 
Some,  dressed  in  Greek  costume,  carried  a gilt  model  of  the 
famous  statue  by  Houdon.  Among  the  self-constituted  guard 
were  many  who,  not  a month  before,  had  brought  back  that  other 
King  to  his  capital — from  Varennes — with  howls,  insults,  and 
imprecations. 

Singers  and  music  preceded  the  car  itself.  Supported  on 
four  great  wheels  of  bronze,  it  looked  liked  a magnificent  altar. 
On  the  summit  was  the  sarcophagus,  and  on  that  a full-length 
figure  of  Voltaire  reclining  in  an  attitude  of  sleep  and  with  a 
winged  Immortality  placing  a crown  of  stars  on  his  head.  On 
the  sarcophagus  was  written,  in  words  of  noble  simplicity,  ‘ He 
avenged  Calas,  La  Barre,  Sirven,  and  Montbailli.  Poet,  philo- 
sopher, historian,  he  gave  a great  impetus  to  the  human  mind : 
he  prepared  us  to  become  free.’  The  whole  structure,  forty  feet 
high,  was  drawn  by  twelve  white  horses,  two  of  which,  it  is  said, 
had  been  furnished  by  Marie  Antoinette.  On  the  car  were  such 
inscriptions  as — ‘ He  defended  Calas.’  ‘ He  inspired  toleration.’ 
‘ He  claimed  the  rights  of  men.’ 

Behind  it  walked  Belle-et-Bonne  and  her  husband,  with  their 
little  girl  in  her  nurse’s  arms.  Then  came  deputations  from  the 
National  Assembly  and  the  Courts  of  Justice,  and  then  another 
detachment  of  military. 


From  a Contemporary  Print , 


1791] 


THE  END 


527 


The  procession  itself  consisted  of  a hundred  thousand  persons. 
Six  hundred  thousand  more  witnessed  it. 

It  first  stopped  at  the  Opera  House.  The  operatic  company 
came  forward  and  sang  that  song  in  Voltaire’s  ‘ Samson  ’ which 
became,  with  the  ‘ Marseillaise,’  the  song  of  the  Revolution — 

Wake,  ye  people  ! Break  your  chains ! 

After  the  Opera  House,  the  Tuileries  was  passed.  Every 
window  was  filled  with  spectators,  save  one.  Behind  that,  closed 
and  barred,  sat  the  most  unhappy  of  monarchs,  Louis  and  Marie 
Antoinette,  awaiting  doom. 

The  next  stop  was  in  front  of  the  Hotel  Villette.  Upon  a 
platform  outside  it  were  fifty  young  girls  dressed  in  white,  and 
before  them  the  two  daughters  of  Calas  in  deep  mourning.  They 
kissed  the  sarcophagus  of  ‘ the  man  of  Calas  ’ ; and  Belle-et- 
Bonne  lifted  up  her  child  as  if  ‘ to  consecrate  her  to  reason,  to 
philosophy,  and  to  liberty.’ 

The  next  stop  was  at  the  old  Comedie  Fran<jaise — the  scene 
of  Voltaire’s  earliest  dramatic  triumphs,  and  where  now  was  his 
bust  with  the  inscription,  ‘ He  wrote  “ (Edipe  ” at  seventeen.’ 

At  the  Theatre  Francjais,  become  the  Theatre  of  the  Nation, 
were  garlands  and  music  and  the  inscription,  ‘ He  wrote  “ Irene  ” 
at  eighty-four.’  And  once  more  a chorus  sang  the  spirited  song 
out  of  ‘ Samson.’ 

At  last,  at  ten  o’clock  at  night  and  in  a drizzling  rain,  the 
Pantheon  was  reached. 

The  sarcophagus  was  lifted  into  the  place  designed  for  it — 
near  the  tombs  of  Descartes  and  Mirabeau. 

The  history  of  Voltaire  after  death  could  be  elaborated  into 
a volume.  But,  after  all,  it  throws  no  light  on  his  life  and 
character,  only  on  those  of  the  friends  who  loved  him,  the  enemies 
who  hated  him,  and  the  mob  who  went  mad  over  him. 

When  it  is  considered  that  to  the  excesses  of  that  mob  he 
would  have  been  passionately  opposed,  and  that  the  only  Revolu- 
tion he  desired  was  gradual,  temperate,  and  unbloody,  it  may  well 
be  doubted  if,  had  he  lived  till  1791,  his  last  journey  would  not 
have  been,  like  that  of  many  other  patriots,  to  a very  different 
accompaniment  and  a very  different  destination. 

For  a while  he  was  allowed  to  rest  in  that  quiet  and  honoured 
grave. 


528  THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE  [1814-1878 

But  1814  saw  the  restoration  of  those  Bourbons  whose  hatred 
for  him  was  hereditary. 

With  the  connivance  of  the  ministry,  the  tombs  of  both 
Voltaire  and  Rousseau  were  violated,  their  bones  removed  in  a 
sack  at  night  to  a waste  place  outside  the  city,  and  emptied  into 
a pit  filled  with  quicklime.  That  long-dreaded  fate — 1 thrown 
into  the  gutter  like  poor  Lecouvreur  ’ — was  Voltaire’s  after  all. 

But  those  dishonoured  ashes  and  that  unhallowed  burial 
keep  his  memory  more  vividly  alive  than  the  marble  tomb  of 
a Pantheon. 

The  violation  was  discovered  in  1864,  when,  the  Villette 
family  becoming  extinct,  Voltaire’s  heart  became  the  property  of 
the  nation. 

It  was  decided  to  place  it  with  his  ashes  in  the  Pantheon. 
But  the  tomb  was  empty. 

The  Marquis  de  Villette  died  in  1793,  thereby  escaping  the 
guillotine,  to  which  he  had  been  condemned  for  refusing  to  vote 
for  the  death  of  the  King.  Belle-et-Bonne,  a widow  at  thirty-six, 
consecrated  her  life  to  Voltaire’s  memory. 

In  1878  his  centenary  was  celebrated  with  the  warmest 
enthusiasm  by  the  most  fickle  capital  in  the  world. 

Victor  Hugo  eulogised  Voltaire  with  much  emotion  and 
applause,  and  fervent  words  which  mean  nothing  in  particular. 
But  the  fact  that  the  Fighter  had  been  dead  a century  did  not 
prevent  him  from  being  still  a cause  of  strife.  Dupanloup, 
Bishop  of  Orleans,  hotly  attacked  the  infidel  and  demanded  an 
injunction  against  a new  edition  of  his  works,  which  was 
refused. 

This  was  the  last  famous  assault  on  the  Great  Assaulter. 
France,  perhaps  even  Catholic  France,  recognises  in  some  sort 
the  debt  she  owes  to  Voltaire.  Is  not  the  enemy  who  shows  a 
nation  her  weak  points,  forces  her  to  look  to  her  ships  and  her 
armaments,  to  remedy  abuses  in  her  organisation,  and  feebleness, 
viciousness,  and  incompetency  in  her  servants,  something  very 
like  a friend  in  disguise  ? 

It  may  be  truly  said  that  Voltaire  did  good  to  Roman 
Catholicism  by  attacking  much  that  degraded  it ; by  hooting 
out  of  it  the  superstition  and  tyranny  which  have  made  some 
of  the  noblest  souls  on  earth  decline  it ; and  by  forcing  its 
children  to  give  a reason  for  the  faith  that  was  in  them. 


THE  END 


529 


Then,  too,  if  the  Ohnrch  of  Rome  could  withstand  that  deadly, 
breathless,  and  brilliant  onslaught  called  Voltairism,  she  may  well 
point  triumphantly  to  the  fulfilment  of  that  ancient  prophecy  and 
consolation,  ‘ The  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it.7 

To  the  Church  in  France  it  may  be  acknowledged  that 
Voltaire  was  not  wholly  an  evil,  while  to  her  country  he  was  a 
great  glory. 

In  England  there  is  still  against  him  a prejudice,  which,  said 
Buckle,  nothing  but  ignorance  can  excuse.  To  the  ordinary 
Briton  Voltaire  is  only  a very  profane  scoffer  who  made  some 
rather  amusing  and  very  doubtful  jokes. 

Yet  this  was  he  who,  as  Frederick  the  Great  said,  was  extra- 
ordinary in  everything.  Here  was  the  man  who  was  poet,  play- 
wright, novelist,  letter-writer,  historian,  critic,  philosopher, 
theologian,  socialist,  philanthropist,  agriculturist,  humorist, 
reformer,  wit,  and  man  of  the  world. 

England  has  no  counterpart  for  him.  But  then  neither  has 
France,  nor  any  other  country.  Think  of  the  great  names  of 
earthly  fame.  Of  which  can  it  be  said — with  even  approximate 
truth — ‘ Here  is  another  Voltaire  7 ? 

As  a poet,  he  was  the  king  of  those  society  verses  which  he 
modestly  said  himself  ‘ are  good  for  nothing  but  society  and  only 
for  the  moment  for  which  they  are  written.7 

But  such  as  they  are — madrigal,  epigram,  epitaph,  the  grace- 
fullest  flattery  in  four  lines,  and  the  daintiest  malice  in  a 
couplet — if  Voltaire  had  written  nothing  else,  his  supremacy  in 
these  alone  would  have  given  him  a perpetual  place  in  the  litera- 
ture of  his  country. 

His  longer  and  graver  poems  are  immortal  for  what  he  said, 
not  for  how  he  said  it. 

As  a playwright,  his  tragedies  were  the  most  famous  of  his 
age.  Ours  applies  to  them  those  fatal  adjectives — fluent,  elegant, 
correct.  Without  any  of  the  indomitable  life  and  swing  which 
characterise  almost  all  his  other  works,  they  were  perfectly  suited 
to  that  exceedingly  bad  public  taste  which  preferred  smoothness 
before  vigour,  and  a careful  consideration  of  the  unities  to  the 
genius  of  a Shakespeare. 

Voltaire’s  comedies  are  only  sprightly  and  fluent. 

As  a historian,  whether  in  prose  or  verse,  he  is  celebrated  for 

M M 


530 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


his  broad  and  comprehensive  views,  his  enormous  general  know- 
ledge (for  his  time),  ‘ the  vehemence  and  sincerity  of  his  abhor- 
rence of  the  military  spirit/  his  savage  hatred  of  the  religious 
culte , and  his  inimitably  interesting  and  vivacious  style.  Until 
his  day  the  learned  rarely  had  wit  and  the  witty  rarely  had  learn- 
ing. Voltaire  set  an  example  which  has  been  singularly  little 
followed  : he  made  facts  more  amusing  than  fiction. 

His  fiction  indeed  is,  with  the  multitude,  one  of  his  chief 
titles  to  fame.  But  all  his  fiction,  rhyming  or  prose,  was  to 
teach  facts  ; though  his  heart  was  so  perfect  that  the  facts  never 
spoilt  the  fancy.  He  was  the  pioneer  in  France  of  the  short 
story,  the  C07ite.  There  may  be  traced,  in  a slight  degree,  the 
influence  of  Swift.  But  Voltaire’s  satire  is  gayer,  brighter,  and 
cleaner  than  the  great  Dean’s. 

Voltaire  is  the  first  letter-writer  in  the  world.  He  was  him- 
self interested  in  everything,  and  so  interesting  to  everybody. 

His  letters  contain  not  only  his  own  best  biography,  and  not 
only  the  literary  history  of  the  eighteenth  century.  They  touch 
on  all  contemporary  history — social,  religious,  scientific,  political. 
They  are  at  once  the  wittiest  and  the  most  natural  extant.  He 
wrote  with  that  liquid  ease  with  which  a bird  shakes  out  his  song. 
His  French  is  at  one  and  the  same  time  the  most  perfect  French 
for  the  Frenchman  and  the  stylist,  and  the  simplest  for  the 
foreigner  to  understand. 

Besides  his  letters,  with  their  easy  grace  and  wealth  of 
world-wide  knowledge,  Horace  Walpole’s  are  but  the  gossip  of  a 
clique ; Madame  de  Sevigne’s  the  chit-chat  of  a boudoir ; Lady 
Wortley  Montagu’s  coarse  and  clumsy ; and  Pope’s  stilted  and 
artificial.  They  are  also  comparatively  free  from  the  indecency 
which  mars  many  other  of  Voltaire’s  writings  and  almost  all  the 
correspondence  of  his  age.  His  letters  remain  (as  early  as  1872 
there  were  seven  thousand  of  them  in  print,  and  Beuchot  thought 
at  least  as  many  more  undiscovered)  an  almost  inexhaustible 
gold  mine  of  literary  delight,  and  a most  liberal  education. 

As  a blasphemous  mocker  at  some  of  the  most  sacred  con- 
victions of  their  souls,  Voltaire  has  been  naturally,  when  he 
touches  on  religion,  anathema  not  only  to  Roman  Catholics, 
but  to  all  Christians.  The  liberal-minded  will  be  ready  to  own 
that  to  attack  a system  he  not  only  believed  to  be  false  but 
actively  harmful,  was  well  within  his  rights.  It  is  his  method 


THE  END 


531 


which  inspires  just  indignation.  A profoundly  serious  subject 
has  a right  to  profoundly  serious  treatment.  But,  after  all, 
Voltaire’s  gibes  and  laugh  turn  against  himself.  Who  believes 
a scoffer  ? If  he  had  not  jeered  at  the  creed  of  Christendom, 
he  would  have  made  more  converts  to  the  creed  of  Voltaire. 

What  was  his  creed  ? It  had  only  one  article.  ‘ 1 believe  in 
God.’  In  that  belief  4 one  finds  difficulties  ; in  the  belief  that 
there  is  no  God,  absurdities.’  ‘ The  wise  man  attributes  to  God 
no  human  affections.  He  recognises  a power  necessary,  eternal, 
which  animates  all  Nature ; and  is  resigned.’ 

As  for  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  it  seems,  contrary  to  the 
opinion  of  many  of  his  biographers,  that  Voltaire  rather  longed 
to  believe  in  it,  than  that  he  did  so.  ‘ But  your  soul,  Sir — your 
soul  ? What  idea  have  you  of  it  ? From  whence  does  it  come  ? 
Where  is  it  ? What  is  it  ? What  does  it  do  ? How  does  it  act  ? 
Where  does  it  go  ? I know  nothing  about  it  and  I have  never 
seen  it.’  ‘ For  sixty  years  I have  tried  to  discover  what  the  soul 
is,  and  I still  know  nothing.’ 

His  practical  scheme  of  religion  he  expressed  himself.  ‘ To 
worship  God  ; to  leave  each  man  the  liberty  to  serve  Him  in  his 
own  fashion  ; to  love  one’s  neighbours  ; enlighten  them  if  one  can, 
pity  them  when  they  are  in  error ; to  attach  no  importance  to 
trivial  questions  which  would  never  have  given  trouble  if  no 
seriousness  had  been  imputed  to  them.  That  is  my  religion, 
which  is  worth  all  your  systems  and  all  your  symbols.’ 

The  stumbling-blocks  he  found  in  the  road  to  Christianity — 
that  is  to  Roman  Catholicism,  the  only  form  of  Christianity 
to  which  he  addressed  himself — were  twofold.  The  mental 
stumbling-block  was  miracle;  and  the  moral,  the  lives  of  the 
believers.  He  considered  the  second  to  be  the  natural  fruit  of 
the  first : that  the  Christian  belief  must  be  destroyed  to  destroy 
the  wickedness,  darkness,  cruelty,  and  tyranny  he  found  in 
Christian  lives  ; that  men  ‘ will  not  cease  to  be  persecutors  till 
they  have  ceased  to  be  absurd.’ 

It  should  be  remembered — it  is  not  often  remembered — that, 
in  the  words  of  Morley,  4 there  is  no  case  of  Voltaire  mocking  at 
any  set  of  men  who  lived  good  lives,’  and  that  6 the  Christianity 
he  assailed  was  not  that  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.’ 

Regarding  the  problems  of  the  future  life,  of  future  awards, 

mm2 


532 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


punishments,  and  compensations,  and  the  manifold  mysteries  of 
this  world,  he  was,  broadly  speaking,  an  Agnostic. 

4 Behold,  I know  not  anything.’ 

But  Voltaire’s  real  claim  to  eternal  remembrance  is  far  less 
how  he  thought  or  what  he  wrote,  than  what  his  writings  did . 

Some  of  them  are  obsolete  to-day  because  they  so  perfectly 
accomplished  their  aim.  Who  wants  to  read  now  passionate 
arguments  against  torture,  and  scathing  satires  on  a jurisdiction 
which  openly  accepted  hearsay  as  evidence  ? 

In  his  own  day  those  writings  produced  many  practical 
reforms,  and  paved  the  way  to  many  more.  Through  them,  he 
was  himself  enabled  to  be  a philanthropist  in  an  age  when  the 
prosperous  elder  brothers  of  the  world  looked  up  to  God  from 
stricken  Abel  with  that  scornful  question,  * Am  I my  brother’s 
keeper  ? ’ Through  them,  he  saved  innocent  lives  and  restored 
stolen  honour. 

But  his  Ferney,  his  Lally,  Calas,  Sirven,  La  Barre,  were  only 
types  of  his  work  for  all  the  race. 

He  found  the  earth  overspread  with  hideous  under-growths 
of  oppression  and  privilege,  intolerance  and  cruelty ; and  he 
destroyed  them. 

He  found  the  good  land  covered  with  abuses  in  Church  and 
State  and  every  social  order  ; abuses  political,  personal ; of  the 
rights  of  the  living,  and  the  decent  respect  owed  to  the  dead — and 
he  uprooted  them.  With  a laugh  and  blasphemy  on  his  lips,  but 
with  eyes  and  soul  afire  and  the  nervous,  tireless  hands  trembling 
with  eagerness,  the  most  dauntless,  passionate,  dogged  little 
worker  in  all  human  history  hewed  and  hacked  at  the  monstrous 
tyrannies  of  centuries,  and  flung  them,  dead,  from  the  fair  and 
beautiful  soil  they  had  usurped. 

At  last,  after  sixty  years  of  superhuman  effort,  he  had  cleared 
the  place  and  made  it  ready  for  the  planting  of  the  Tree  of  Liberty. 

Whoso  sits  under  that  tree  to-day  in  any  country,  free  to 
worship  his  God  as  he  will,  to  think,  to  learn,  and  to  do  all  that 
does  not  intrench  on  the  freedom  of  his  fellow-men — free  fco  pro- 
gress to  heights  of  light  and  knowledge  as  yet  unseen  and 
undreamt — should  in  gratitude  remember  Voltaire. 


FINIS 


INDEX 


Abingdon,  Lord,  424 
Adam,  Father,  406,  453,  486 
* Adelaide  du  Guesclin,’  67 ; pro- 
duced, 68 

4 Agathocle,’  489 ; produced,  524 
‘Akakia,  Diatribe  of  Doctor,’  248- 
250,  253,  257 ; published,  243-7 
Alain,  Maitre,  13 

Alembert,  d’,  132,  199,  235,  322-3, 
395,  430,  500-1,  506,  509, 

512,  518-19,  521-524;  history, 
character,  and  visit  to  D61ices, 
301-4  ; and  the  4 Geneva  ’ Article, 
314-15 ; withdraws  from  4 En- 
cyclopaedia,’ 345 ; visits  Ferney, 
466-8 

Algarotti,  Comte,  79,  96,  111,  124, 
214-16 

Alliot  (commissioner  to  Stanislas), 
188,  221 

‘ Alzire,’  77,  200,  514  ; produced, 
82 

4 Amulius  and  Numitor,’  6 
Ancian  (cure  of  Moens),  330,  377-8 
4 Annals  of  the  Empire,’  255 ; pub- 
lished, 277-8 

Annecy,  Biort,  Bishop  of,  327,  330, 
377,  445,  450-2 

4 Anti-Machiavelli  ’ (Frederick  the 
Great’s),  120,  125 
Aremberg,  Due  d’,  117 
Argens,  Marquis  d’,  215,  216,  237, 
313 

Argenson,  the  Comtes  d’,  5,  115, 
152,  276,  300,  307 

Argental,  Comte  d\  5,  115,  157,  178, 
195,  209,  230,  280,  349,  367,  493, 
503,  505 

Arnaud,  Baculard  d’,  203-4,  210, 
212,  228 ; his  quarrel  with 

Voltaire,  218-20 


Arnould,  Sophie,  498 

Arouet,  Armand,  2,  3,  4,  8,  23,  28  ; 

his  death  and  character,  145 
Arouet,  Madame,  2 ; her  death,  3 
Arouet,  Maitre,  7-13,  22;  position, 
character,  and  marriage,  1 ; at 
performance  of  ‘ CEdipe,’  23-4  ; 
his  death,  28 

4 Art  of  War,  The  ’ (Frederick  the 
Great’s),  228-30 
4 Art^mire  ’ produced,  37 
Artois,  Comte  d’,  504-5,  507 
4 Assyrian  War  Chariots,’  310 
Audibert.  See  Calas,  and  481 
Aumard,  d’,  lives  with  Voltaire,  351 


4 Babouc,’  166,  201 
Barbara  (‘Bonne-Baba,’  servant), 
407,  488,  521 

Bazincourt,  Mile,  de,  369-70 
Beaudrigue,  David  de  (magistrate). 

See  Calas ; see  Sirvens 
Beaumont,  Elie  de  (barrister).  See 
Calas ; see  Sirvens 
Beauregard  (spy),  18,  30 
Beauteville,  de  (French  envoy),  433- 
4,  439 

Beauvau,  Prince  de,  496,  507 
Belbatre  (musician),  497 
4 Belle-et-Bonne  ’ (Mile,  de  Vari- 
court,  after  Marquise  de  Villette), 
482,  488,  506,  516,  523,  526-8 
Bellecour  (actor),  496 
Bernieres,  M.  and  Mme.  de,  33,  36, 
38,  39,  45,  47,  62,  110,  113 
Bernis,  Abb6  (‘Babet’),  311,  321, 
460 

Berri,  Duchesse  du,  16,  17,  18,  34 
Berthe  (playwright),  486 
Bettinelli  (writer),  326-7 


534 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


Bigex  (copyist),  444,  486  | 

Boccage,  Mme.  du  (poetess),  320 
Boerhaave,  Doctor,  88 
Boisy,  M.  de,  327-8 
Bolingbroke,  St.  John,  Lord,  28,  33, 
46-49 

* Bolingbroke,  Defence  of  Lord,’  244, 
324 

Bombelles,  Mme.  de  (affair  of),  474 
Boswell,  James,  50,  437 
Boufflers,  de,  411 
Boufflers,  Duchesse  de,  135 
Boufflers,  Mme.  de,  173-6, 183,  188- 
9,  190 

Bourbon,  Due  de,  39,  43,  504 
‘ Boursouffle,’  103,  162-3 
Boyer,  Bishop  of  Mirepoix,  136-7, 
167,  205,  234,  311 

Brenles,  M.  de  (lawyer),  281,  288, 
298 

Breteuil,  Abbe  de,  101-104,  107 
Brettwitz,  Lieutenant.  See  Frank- 
fort 

Brizard  (actor),  507 
Brosses,  President  de,  327,  329-30, 
381 

Brunswick,  Duke  of,  142 
‘ Brutus,’  48,  51,  52,  58  ; produced, 
60 

Buffon,  Comte  de,  237,  471 
Burney,  Doctor,  334,  463,  466 
Byng,  Admiral,  Voltaire’s  advocacy 
of,  305-6 


Cabals,  The,’  483 

Calas  (the  affair  of),  384-399,  407, 
413-15,  458,  527 
Calmet,  Dom,  280 
4 Calumny,  Epistle  on,’  67,  72 
4 Campaigns  of  the  King,*  294  ; and 
see  4 Louis  XV.,  Century  of  ’ 

4 Candide,’  306,  321-2  ; published, 
345-8 

4 Canning,  Elizabeth,  History  of,’ 
396.  See  Calas 
Cartesian  System,  94-7 
Casanova,  326 

Castres,  Bishop  of.  See  Sirvens 
4 Catechism  of  an  Honest  Man,’ 
409 

Catherine  II.  of  Russia  (Catherine 
the  Great),  91,  334,  423,  453,  459, 
522,  524 


Caumartin,  13-14,  70 
Cazeing.  See  Calas 
Chabanon,  438,  440-1,  481 
Chabrillant,  Colonel,  438 
Champbonin,  Mme.  de,  75,  92,  101, 
105-6,  114,  116,  173,  195 
Charles  VI.,  Emperor  of  Austria, 
death  of,  125 

4 Charles  XII.,  History  of,’  51-2,  57, 
59-60,  353  ; published,  61-2 
Chasot,  Major,  215,  224 
Chateauneuf,  Abb6  de,  2, 3,  5 ; death 
of,  6 

Chateauneuf,  Marquis  de,  9-12 
Chatelet,  Emilie  de  Breteuil,  Mar- 
quise du,  37,  67,  69,  70,  78,  79,  80, 
82,  85,  88  seq.,  119  seq.,  140,  146, 
152,  153,  159,  167,  177,  181,  220, 
272-3,  318,  327,  335-6  ; birth  and 
education,  70  ; marriage  and  cha- 
racter, 70-1  ; visits  Voltaire,  71 ; 
at  Richelieu’s  wedding,  72 ; in 
Paris,  72;  as  Voltaire’s  mistress, 
73-4  ; arrives  at  Cirey,  76  ; her 
children,  76 ; in  the  affair  of  4 Le 
Mondain,’  87-8 ; as  a scientific 
student,  95-6  ; writes  4 Essay  on 
Fire,’  98 ; during  Mme.  de  Graf- 
figny’s  visit,  99-104  ; quarrels 
with  her,  105-6;  life  with  Vol- 
taire, 107-9;  in  Desfontaines’ 
affair,  112-16 ; visits  Brussels, 
Enghien,  Paris,  116-18  ; her  atti- 
tude towards  Frederick,  121-4 ; 
work  at  Fontainebleau,  125  ; quar- 
rel and  reconciliation  with  Vol- 
taire, 129;  dissipation  in  Paris, 
131 ; marriage  of  her  daughter, 
139 ; her  discontent  with  Vol- 
taire, 142 ; adventure  in  Paris, 
145 ; illness  of  her  son,  147  ; at 
the  Duchesse  du  Maine’s,  161-3 ; 
passion  for  play  and  flight  from 
court,  164-5 ; acting  at  Sceaux, 
168 ; adventure  on  way  to  Cirey, 
172-3  ; life  there,  173  ; her  love 
affair  with  Saint-Lambert,  174-7 ; 
its  discovery  by  Voltaire,  181-4; 
its  consequences,  185 ; studies 
and  life  in  Paris,  186-7 ; life  at 
Luneville,  188-9  ; her  last  illness 
and  death,  189-90 ; her  posses- 
sions, 191 ; her  character  and  in- 
fluence on  Voltaire,  190-4 


INDEX 


535 


Chatelet,  Louis  du,  76,  78,  147,  177 
Ch&telet,  Marquis  du,  69,  70,  73,  76, 
77,  78, 102, 106, 114, 115,  131, 185, 
190,  194,  195 

Chatelet,  Pauline  du,  76,  103,  139 
Chaulieu,  Abb£,  8,  16,  63,  313 
Chaumont,  affair  of,  410 
Chazel.  See  Calas 
Chesterfield,  Lord,  50,  130,  132,  213, 
235 

Choiseul,  Due  de,  317,  326,  348-50, 
436-7,  458-9,  468-470 
Choiseul,  Duchesse  de,  457-8,  469- 
70 

‘ Christian  against  Six  Jews,  A,’  465, 
486 

‘ Christian  Dialogues,’  348 
Cideville,  5,  33,  60-1,  72 
‘Civil  Wars  of  France,  An  Essay 
upon  the,’  52 

‘ Civil  War  of  Geneva,  The,’  435-6 
Clairaut  (mathematician),  94,  186 
Clairon,  Mile,  (actress),  197,  293, 
367,  465,  503 ; to  stay  at  Ferney, 
424 

Clarke,  Samuel,  51 
Clausade.  See  Calas 
Clement  (writer),  483 
Collini  (servant-secretary),  211,  282- 
3,  285,  289 : becomes  Voltaire’s 
secretary,  247 ; his  part  in  the 
flight  from  Prussia,  248-67;  his 
dismissal,  299-300 
Condorcet,  Marquis  de,  466-7,  512 
522 

Conduit,  Mrs.,  51 
Congreve,  50,  53 
‘ Consolation,  Letter  of,’  47 
Cormont,  Vaugrenant  de,  401 
Corneille,  Claude  Etienne,  406 
‘ Corneille  Commentary,  The,’  380-1 
Corneille,  Marie,  401,  412,  491, 
adopted  by  Voltaire,  370-3  ; her 
marriage,  405 
Coste,  Doctor,  250 
Covelle  (case  of),  435-6 
Coyer,  Abbe,  341,  381 
Cramer,  the  brothers  (publishers), 
285,  317,  369 
Cramer,  Mme.,  317,  403 
‘ Crebillon,  Eloge  de,’  383 
Crebillon,  Prosper-Jolyot  de  (play- 
wright), 58, 178, 186,196-200,286; 
his  death,  383 


‘ Critical  Letter  to  a Fine  Gentle- 
man of  Paris,’  149 
‘ Cry  of  Innocent  Blood,  The,*  429 


Damiens,  307 

Damilaville  (Parisian  correspon- 
dent), 382,  413,  424;  his  death, 

447 

Darget  (Frederick’s  secretary),  his 
character,  215 ; Frederick’s  epi- 
gram on  his  wife,  218 ; intercedes 
for  Voltaire,  226-7 ; as  friend  of 
La  Beaumelle,  238 ; leaves 
Frederick,  239 

‘ Death  of  Caesar,  The,’  61,  79,  139, 
177,  227 

Decroze,  377-8 

Deffand,  Mme.  du,  67,  73,  152,  173, 
495,  511,  519;  visits  Voltaire  in 
Bastille,  45  ; as  his  correspondent, 
278,  318 ; visits  him  in  Paris,  499 

Delaunay  (Governor  of  Bastille), 
44-5 

Delille,  Abbe,  512 

Denis,  Mme.  Louise  Mignot,  74,  92- 
3,  181,  196,  218,  281  seq. ; 308-9, 
317-8,  321,  328-31,  334,337,  342- 
3,  349-51,  439,  473,  480,  482,  488, 
499,  500,  505-6,  509,  517,  521  ; 
her  marriage,  93;  Voltaire  stays 
with  her,  130 ; death  of  her 
husband,  143 ; comes  to  live  with 
Voltaire,  198  ; left  in  charge  of  his 
house,  205  ; invited  to  Potsdam, 
208-9,  211 ; in  love  with  Ximenes, 
231 ; writes  ‘ Punished  Coquette  ’ 
and  exposes  Longchamps,  239- 
240  ; in  affair  of  Frankfort,  260-7, 
271-2 ; extravagance  in  Paris, 
276 ; joins  Voltaire  at  Plombieres, 
280;  settling  into  Delices,  289; 
steals  MSS.,  294  ; described  by 
Mme.  d’Epinay,  316;  as  an 
actress,  319;  complicity  with  La 
Harpe,  442-4  ; returns  to  Ferney, 
454 ; in  Voltaire’s  last  illness, 
516-19 ; sells  his  library  and 
Ferney,  523 ; marries  Duvivier, 
523 

Denis,  M.,  93,  130  ; his  death,  143 

Denon  (artist),  481 

Desfontaines,  Abbe,  his  quarrel  with 
Voltaire,  110-16 


536 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


Desforts  (controller -general),  57 
Desraares,  Mile,  (actress),  197 
Desmarets,  M.,  105-6 
‘Dialogue  between  a Priest  and  a 
Protestant  Minister,’  435 
Diderot,  199,  303,  414 
‘ Disaster  of  Lisbon,  The,’  323,  345 ; 

published,  295-8 
‘Discourses  on  Man,’  75,  80,  81 
Dodington,  Bubb,  49 
Dorn.  See  Franldort 
Dubarry,  Mme.,  460,  473-4,  498 
Dubois,  Cardinal,  29,  31,  34,  38 
Ducis  (playwright),  524 
Dumesnil,  Mile,  (actress),  135 
Dumolard  (librarian),  125 
Dunoyer,  Olympe  (‘  Pimpette  ’),  her 
love  affair  with  Voltaire,  10-13 
Dupuits,  Mme.  See  Corneille,  Marie 
Dupuits,  Mile.,  406,  412 
Dupuits,  M.,  405,  444,  504,  509 
Duval.  See  La  Barre 
Duvivier,  505,  509,  523 


Elector  Palatine,  Charles  Theo- 
dore, 270-1,  321-2 
‘ Elements  of  Newton’s  Philosophy,’ 
88,  94-5 ; published,  96-7 
Elizabeth,  Empress  of  Russia,  308, 
352  ; her  death,  423 
Enclos,  Ninon  de  1’,  1,  2,  3,  5-6 

* Encyclopaedia,’  the  (Diderot  and 

d’Alembert),  236,  272,  301-4,  344 

* English  Letters,  The ; or,  The 

Philosophical  Letters,’  52-6,  64, 
67-8,  83,  .133  ; published,  69 
‘ Envieux,  L’,  ’ 112 
Enville,  Duchesse  d’.  See  Calas  and 
403 

Ephraim  (moneylender).  &ecHirsch 
‘ Epick  Poetry  of  the  European 
, Nations,  The,’  52,  110 
Epinay,  Madame  d\  329  ; her  visit 
to  D61ices,  316-17 
‘ Epistle  to  Uranie.’  See  ‘ Uranie  ’ 

‘ Eriphyle,’  61,  63  ; produced,  62 
Espinas  (affair  of),  409-10 

* Essay  on  the  Manners  and  Mind  of 

Nations,’  191 ; published,  272, 
324 

‘ Essay  on  the  Nature  and  Propaga- 
tion of  Fire  ’ (Mme.  du  Chatelet ’s), 
98,  122 


‘ Essay  on  the  Nature  and  Propaga- 
tion of  Fire,’  95-7 ; published, 
, 98 

Etallonde  de  Morival,  d’.  See  La 
Barre 

‘ Eulogy  (or  Panegyric)  of  Saint 
Louis,’  188 

‘ Events  of  the  Year,’  146 


Falkener,  Sir  Everard,  49,  51,  152, 
233-4 ; his  death,  352 
‘ Fanaticism,  Ode  on,’  71 
‘ Fanine.’  See  ‘ Zulime  ’ 

Fleury,  Cardinal,  64, 125-6, 132, 133, 
134 ; his  death,  136 
Florian,  Marquis  de,  303,  401,  470-1 
Florian,  Marquise  de.  See  Fontaine, 
Madame  de 
‘ Florianet,’  471 

Fontaine,  Madame  de  (Mile.  Mignot 
and  Marquise  de  Florian),  92, 198, 
281,  299,  301-4,  329,  341,  401; 
her  marriage  to  M.  de  Fontaine, 
93 ; her  death,  470 
Fontaine-Martel,  Comtesse  de,  62, 
67 ; her  death,  65 

Fontenelle  (writer),  28,  63,  94,  197, 
370,  503 

‘ Fontenoy  ’ published,  149 
Fox,  Charles  James,  446 
Frankfort  (affair  of),  253-67 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  497,  512 
Frederick  II.  of  Prussia  (Frederick 
the  Great),  115, 130,  131, 133, 137, 
186-8,  195-6,  200,  201,  213,  277 
seq .,  291,  308,  321,  336,  421,  460, 
466,  481 ; his  correspondence  with 
Voltaire,  84-5, 119-22  ; sends  him 
‘ Anti-Machiavelli,’  120;  becomes 
King,  122 ; relations  to  Mme.  du 
Chatelet,  122-3 ; meets  Voltaire 
at  Moyland,  123 ; and  at  Remus- 
berg,  125  ; invades  Silesia,  128-9  ; 
entertains  Voltaire  at  Aix-la- 
Chapelle,  134 ; and  at  Berlin  and 
Bayreuth,  140-2 ; his  epitaph  on 
Mme.  du  Chatelet,  191 ; as 
d’Arnaud’s  patron,  203-4 ; his 
reception  of  Voltaire,  207-9  ; at 
the  Carrousel,  209-211 ; as  Vol- 
taire’s pupil,  212 ; borrows  Voltaire 
from  Louis,  213  ; at  the  Suppers, 
214-17 ; his  conduct  to  Darget, 


INDEX 


537 


218 ; in  the  d’Arnaud  quarrel, 
219-220;  in  the  Hirsch  affair, 
223-7 ; his  writings,  228-30 ; 
strained  relations  with  Voltaire, 
230-2 ; in  the  quarrel  with  Mau- 
pertuis,  237-47;  dismisses  Vol- 
taire, 251 ; parts  from  him,  252 ; 
in  the  affair  of  the  ‘ (Euvre  de 
Po^sie,’  258-67;  effects  of  Vol- 
taire’s visit,  268-9  ; relations  with 
him  in  Seven  Years’  War,  311-14, 
322-3,  348-350,  380,  422;  sub- 
scribes to  Voltaire’s  statue,  464 ; 
reads  his  ‘Eulogium’  &c.,  522; 
caricatured  in  his  ‘ Memoirs,’  524 
Fredersdorff,  245-6,  249,  260,  263 
Freron  (critic  and  journalist),  200, 
201, 205, 219,  367-8, 370, 372  ; and 
‘ The  Scotch  Girl,’  363-6  ; death 
of,  483 

‘ Freron,  Anecdotes  of,’  372 
Freytag  (the  resident),  253-4  ; and 
see  Frankfort 


Gallien,  437 

Gaultier,  Abbe,  498-502,  516,  519, 
520 

Gay,  John,  46,  49,  50 
‘ Geneva  ’ Article  (d’Alembert’s), 
304,  314-315,  322-3 
Genlis,  Madame  de,  485 
Genlis,  Marquis  and  Marquise  de, 
310 

Genonville,  de,  21,  25  ; his  death,  36 
George  I.,  25,  47 
George  II.,  140 

‘ Gertrude,  or  the  Education  of  a 
Daughter,’  410 
Gervasi,  Doctor,  37 
Gibbon,  Edward,  319 
Gleichen,  Baron,  318,  467 
Gluck  (musician),  496 
Gonon.  See  Saurin. 

Gorse.  See  Calas 
‘ Gospel  of  the  Day,  The,’  348 
Gouvernet,  Marquise  de.  See  Livri 
Graffigny,  Mme.  de,  112,  114,  174, 
180 ; her  visit  to  Cirey,  99-107 
Grasset  (publisher),  291-2 ; and 
see  Saurin 

Gretry  (musician),  437-8 
Gros  (cure  of  Ferney),  450-1,  461 
Gu4briant,  Marquis  de,  71 


Guenee,  Abbe,  486 
Guise,  Mile.  de.  See  Bichelieu, 
Duchesse  de 


Haller  (writer),  325-6 
Hanway,  Jonas,  211 
Helvetius,  327,  344  ; his  death,  470 
Hinault,  President,  28,  144,  199 
Hennin  (French  envoy),  433 
‘ Henriade,  The,’  14,  19,  27,  28,  33 
seq_.,  51-2,  54,  60,  61,  137,  331 ; its 
publication,  38 

Henry  of  Prussia,  Prince,  220 
Hirsch  (the  affair  of),  222-7 
Hornoy,  Abb6  d\  341,  470,  521 ; at 
Voltaire’s  death  and  burial,  518-20 
‘ Host  and  Hostess,  The,’  486 
Huber  (artist),  317,  481 
Hugenot  (cure  of  Ferney),  461,  521 


‘ Indiscret,  L’,’  38-40  ; produced,  39 
‘ Infame,  1’,’  354-7 
‘ Institutions  Physiques  ’ (Madame 
du  Chatelet’s),  122 
‘Irene,’  489-90,  507-8,  527;  pro- 
duced, 504 

‘ J’ai  Vu,’  17,  18,  20,  22 
Jalabert  (barrister).  See  Sirvens 
Jore  (publisher),  61,  68,  69 ; his 
quarrel  with  Voltaire,  82-3 
Joseph  II.  (Emperor  of  Austria), 
487-8 


Kaiserling,  90-1,  124 
Keith,  George  (Earl  Marischal  of 
Scotland),  215,  262,  305 
Keith,  James,  215 

Koenig  (mathematician),  116-118, 
130 ; championed  by  Voltaire, 
241-4 


La  Barre,  Chevalier  de  (the  affair  of 
the),  425-30 

La  Beaumelle,  254,  439  ; his  quarrel 
with  Voltaire,  237-8 
La  Borde  (playwright),  437,  473 
La  Harpe  (critic  and  dramatist), 
495,  500,  504-5,  519,  522;  at 
Ferney,  423,  440-4 
Lally,  General,  his  vindication,  476-8 


538 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


La  Mettrie,  Doctor,  215,  231-2,  242  ; 

his  death,  232 
Lasalle,  de.  See  Calas 
Launay,  Mademoiselle  de.  See  Staal 
Lauraguais  (playwright),  381 
Lavaysse,  Gaubert.  See  Calas 
‘ Laws  of  Minos,  The,’  470 
‘ League,  The.’  See  ‘ Henriade  ’ 

Le  Brun  (poet),  20,  371,  498 
L6cluse  (dentist)  368 
Lecouvreur,  Adrienne  (actress),  27, 
36,  37,  42,  43  ; her  death  and 
burial,  58 

‘ Lecouvreur,  Adrienne,  Poem  on 
the  Death  of,’  59 

Lekain  (actor),  293,  367 ; intro- 
duced to  Voltaire,  199 ; visits 
him,  290-1,  335,  400,  471-2,  485  ; 
his  death,  493 
Lerveche.  See  Saurin 
Lessing,  220-1 

Letourneur  (controversy  with),  484 
* Letter  on  Plays,  The  ’ (J.  J. 

Rousseau’s),  323 

‘Letter  on  the  Thoughts  of  Pas- 
cal ’ 69 

‘ Life,  The  Use  of,’  89 
Ligne,  Prince  de,  337,  411 
Linant,  67,  78,  92 

‘ Literary  War,  The  ’ (Grasset’s), 
324,  326 

Livri,  Mademoiselle  de  (Marquise 
de  Gouvernet),  17,  21,  25,  26,  511 
Longchamp,  S.  G.  (servant-secre- 
tary), 81,  101,  154,  165,  166,  180- 
3,  185,  189,  190,  191,  194-6,  205, 
261 ; becomes  Voltaire’s  servant, 
160 ; dismissed,  239  ; to  see  Vol- 
taire in  Paris,  511-12 
Lorry,  Doctor,  502,  518 
Louis  XIV.,  14  ; his  death,  15-16 
‘Louis  XIV.,  Century  of,’  75,  117, 
221,  231,  237,  254,  269,  324  ; pub- 
lished, 233-5 

Louis  XV.,  29,  35,  39,  40,  141,  144, 
146-154,  160,  168-170,  178,  200, 
204-5,  208,  226,  275,  307,  321, 
384  ; his  death,  479 
‘ Louis  XV.,  Century  of,’  152 
‘ Louis  XV.,  Panegyric  of,’  185,  282 
Louis  XVI.,  491,  525,  527 
Luchet,  Marquis  and  Marquise  de, 
480-1 

Luxembourg,  Duchesse  de,  135 


Machault  (Keeper  of  the  Seals), 
307 

‘ Mahomet,’  124,  130,  150,  199,  231 ; 

produced,  130-3 
Mailly,  Mme.  de,  131 
Maine,  Duchesse  du,  16,  26,  159, 
198,  201,  203  ; her  character,  161 ; 
visited  by  Voltaire  and  Mme.  du 
Chatelet,  161-3  ; shelters  Voltaire 
at  Sceaux,  166-8 

Maintenon,  Letters  of  Mme.  de, 
238-9 

Maisons,  De,  36-8  ; his  death,  61 
Maistre,  Comte  de,  334 
* Man  with  Forty  Crowns,  The,’  449 
Margravine  of  Bayreuth,  Wilhel- 
mina,  126,  210,  227-8,  253,  255, 
265,  267,  278,  281-3,  312-13  ; her 
death,  322 

Maria  Theresa,  Empress  of  Austria, 
125,  140,  312,  314 

‘ Mariamne,’  36,  40 ; produced,  38, 
64 

Marie  Antoinette,  485-6,  491,  504, 
526-7 

Marie  Leczinska,  39-40,  169,  173, 
179,  293,  297,  407  ; death  of,  447 
Mariette  (barrister).  See  Calas 
Marlborough,  Sarah,  Duchess  of, 
46,  50,  61 

Marmontel,  157,  195-6,  199,  203-4, 
321,  496  ; as  Voltaire’s  proteg6, 
158-9  ; stays  at  Delices,  368 
Martin,  Abb6,  499 
Martin  (the  affair  of),  474 
Maupeou,  Chancellor,  469-70,  475 
Maupertuis,  Moreau  de  (philo- 
sopher), 64,  71,  72,  106,  124,  125, 
130,  214,  253  ; history  and  cha- 
racter, 236-7  ; quarrel  with  Vol- 
taire over  Raynal,  237  ; over  La 
Beaumelle,  238-9 ; over  Koenig, 
240-4  ; visits  Plombieres,  280  ; 
his  death,  349 
Melton,  Lord,  211 
Melun,  Due  de,  39 
‘ Memoirs  of  the  House  of  Branden- 
burg’ (Frederick  the  Great’s),  229, 
271 

‘ Memoirs  for  the  Life  of  M.  de 
Voltaire,’  313,  349;  published, 
524 

Menou,  Father,  174,  276 
‘ Merope,’  103, 107 ; produced,  134-6 


INDEX 


539 


‘ Microm6gas,’  166-7 
Mignot,  Abbe,  115,  195,  329,  341, 
470,  498,  501,  521 ; at  Voltaire’s 
death  and  burial,  518-20 
Mignot,  Catherine  ( Catherine 
Arouet),  2,  3,  4,  28 ; her  death,  47 
Moisnel.  See  La  Barre 
‘ Mondain,  Le,’  published,  87-8 
‘ Mondain,  Le,  Defence  of,’  89 
Montbaillis  (the  affair  of  the),  475-6 
Montesquieu,  138 
Montferrat,  M.  and  Mme.  de,  317 
Montperoux,  de  (French  envoy),  369 
Moore,  Doctor  John,  462 
Morand  (servant),  518,  519 
Morangi6s,  Comte  de,  476 
Morellet,  Abbe,  360,  363,  481 
Morsan,  Durey  de,  437 
Mouhy,  Chevalier  de,  112,  116,  347 
Moussinot,  Abb6,  87,  115-117 
Muy,  Marquise  de,  317 


‘ Nanine,’  308 ; produced,  187,  286 
4 Narrative  of  Brother  Grasse,’ 
published,  354 

* Narrative  of  the  Jesuit  Berthier,’ 
published,  354 

‘Natural  Law,’  236,  255,  344; 

published,  296-7 

Neaulme,  Jean  (publisher),  274-5 
Necker,  Mme.  (Mile.  Curchod),  319, 
484,  496 ; and  the  Pigalle  Statue, 
463,  465 
Necker,  M.,  463 
Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  46,  51-2,  55 


‘ (Edipe,’  14,  16,  18,  40,  51,  527 ; 

produced,  23-4,  31 
‘ CEuvre  de  Poesie  ’ (King  Frede- 
rick’s). See  Frankfort ; and  258, 
311,  350 

Oldfield,  Mrs.  (actress),  55 
Olivet,  Abbe  d’,  4,  5,  157,  199 ; his 
death,  447 

‘ Olympie,’  382,  400  ; produced,  411- 
12 

‘ Opinions  of  Jean  Meslier,  Extract 
of  the,’  384 

‘ Oreste,’  200 ; produced,  197-8 
‘ Originaux,  Les,’  168 
‘ Orphan  of  China,  The,’  271-2  ; 
produced,  293 


Palissot,  Charles  (journalist),  362-4 
Panckoucke  (publisher),  481 
‘ Panpan.’  See  Graffigny 
Patu  (poet),  294 

‘ Peter  the  Great,  The  History  of,’ 
308-9 ; published,  352 
Peterborough,  Lord,  49 
‘ Philippics,  The,’  26 
‘ Philosophical  Dictionary,  The,’ 
236,  243,  269,  303,  412-13,  430 
‘ Philosophical  Letters.’  See  4 Eng- 
lish Letters  ’ 

Piccini  (musician),  496 
Pictet,  the  family,  317 
Pigalle  (sculptor),  463-5 
‘ Pimpette.’  See  Dunoyer 
Piron,  Alexis  (poet),  33,  43,  64,  133, 
178,  197,  464 
Poissonnier,  Doctor,  481 
Pollnitz,  Baron,  215-16,  256 
Pompadour,  Marquise  de,  151-4, 
168-9,  178,  200,  205,  213,  262, 
298,  307,  311,  314,  321,  334,  368  ; 
her  character  and  friendship  for 
Voltaire,  151-2 ; his  verses  to 
her,  169-170 ; she  offers  him  a 
cardinal’s  hat,  298 ; sends  him 
her  portrait,  379  ; death  of,  412 
Pompignan,  Bishop  of  Puy,  359, 362, 
383 

Pompignan,  Marquis  le  Franc  de, 
his  quarrel  with  Voltaire,  358-62, 
379,  383 

‘ Poor  Devil,  The,’  362 
Pope,  Alexander,  46,  50,  53  ~— 

Pope  Benedict  XIV.,  149  seq . 

‘ Pour,  Le,  et  le  Contre.’  See  Uranie 
Prades,  Abbe  de,  251,  263 
‘ Praise  of  Hypocrisy,  The,’  435 
4 Preservatif,  Le,’  111-13  ; published, 
112 

Prie,  Mme.  de,  39-43,  110 
4 Princess  of  Navarre,  The,’  143-4 ; 
produced,  145-6 

4 Prodigal  Son,  The,’  78,  84,  106, 
168-9  ; produced,  86-7 
4 Prude,  The,’  168 

4 Prussians,  To  the  ’ (Frederick  the 
Great’s),  229 

4 Pucelle,  The,’  74,  77-8,  91,  103, 
105,  217,  255,  265,  281,  283; 
published,  291-2 ; authorised  pub- 
lication, 403-5 
4 Puero  Regnante,  17,  21 


540 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


Quinault,  Mile,  (actress),  78,  86, 
135 

Rameau,  J.  P.  (composer),  67,  143, 
145,  152,  153 

Raynal,  Abb6,  201,  203,  237 
‘ Refutation  of  an  anonymous 
Article,  A,’  324 

Regent,  the  (Philip,  Duke  of 
Orleans),  16,  19,  21,  24-6,  28; 
his  death,  38 

* Reply,  A,  from  an  Academician  of 
Berlin,’  242-3 
Ribotte-Charon.  See  Calas 
Richard  (monk),  437 
Richelieu,  Due  de,  26,  27,  38,  39,  58, 
63,  67,  71,  75,  84,  140,  195,  199, 
311-12,  464 ; his  marriage,  69  ; 
quarrel  with  Voltaire,  186;  Voltaire 
visits  himi at  Lyons,  282-3  ; in  the 
affair  of  Byng,  305-6  ; visits  Vol- 
taire at  Ferney,  403 ; in  Paris, 
497  ; and  on  his  deathbed,  517 
Richelieu,  Duchesse  de  (Mile,  de 
Guise),  69,  79,  283 
Richier  (secretary),  220-1 
Rieu  (American  Officer),  444,  521 
Rohan,  Chevalier  de,  his  quarrel 
with  Voltaire,  42-4,  58 
‘Rome  Sauv6e,’  42,  196,  203,  212, 
217,  239  ; produced,  199-200 
Rousseau,  Jean  Baptiste  (poet),  2, 
6,  111,  117  ; quarrels  with  Voltaire 
in  Holland,  31-2 ; over  the  ‘ Tem- 
ple of  Taste,’  65  ; attacks  him  in 
‘ Biblioth5que  Franqaise,’  86 
Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques,  136,  154, 
280,  345-6,  464 ; his  ‘ Discourse 
on  Inequality,’  293-4 ; remon- 
strates on  ‘Disaster  of  Lisbon,’ 
301 ; his  ‘ Letter  on  Plays,’  323  ; 
his  ‘ New  Eloisa,’  375-6 ; his 
‘ Emile  ’ and  ‘ Savoyard  Vicar,’ 
401-3 

Roy,  Charles  (poet),  154,  159,  170 
Royal  Society,  the,  138 
Rucker,  Councillor.  See  Frankfort 
Rupelmonde,  Mme.  de,  30-3,  63 
‘ Russia  under  Peter  I.’  See  1 Peter 
the  Great  ’ 

Saint-Ange,  Marquis  de,  13,  17 
Saint-Julien,  Mme.,  437,  460,  481, 
485,  517 


Saint-Lambert,  Marquis  de,  174, 181, 
185,  195,  454,  496  ; his  character, 
174  ; his  love  affair  with  Mme.  du 
Chatelet,  174-7 ; his  conduct  on 
its  discovery,  181-3 ; at  the  ill- 
ness and  death  of  Mme.  du  Cha- 
telet, 189-190 

Saint-Marc,  Marquis  de,  508 
Saint- Sulpice,  de  Tersac,  Cure  of, 
502,  519-20 
‘ Samson,’  67,  527 
Saurin  Controversy,  the,  323-4,  331 
Saussure,  Mile,  de,  473 
Saxe-Gotha,  Duchess  of,  254,  277, 
296 

‘ Scarmentado,’  166,  201 
Schmidt,  Councillor.  See  Frankfort 
Schoepflin,  the  brothers  (historian 
and  printer),  271,  277 
Schouvaloff,  Count,  352-4 
‘ Scotch  Girl,  The,’  363 ; produced, 
365-6 

‘ Scythians,  The,’  produced,  438 
Segur,  Comtesse  de,  511 
‘ Seigneurial  Rights,’  383  ; produced, 
383 

‘ Semiramis,’  62, 159, 186 ; produced, 
177-8 

* Semiramis,  The  Advertisement  to,’ 
180 

‘ Sermon  of  Fifty,  The,’  402 
‘ Sesostris,’  486 

S5vres  (affair  of  the  Bridge  of),  30, 
113 

Shakespeare,  Voltaire’s  opinion  of, 
in  ‘ English  Letters,’  53 ; in  ‘ Ad- 
vertisement to  Semiramis,’  180; 
in  writing  to  Walpole,  447 ; and 
in  the  quarrel  with  Letourneur, 
484 

Sherlock,  Martin,  337,  381,  482-4 
Sirvens  (affair  of  the),  416-22 
Sloane,  Sir  Hans,  52 
Staal,  Mme.  de  (Mile,  de  Launay), 
16,  161-2,  168 

Stanislas  Leczinski  (ex-King  of 
Poland),  40,  60,  177-8,  181,  186, 
188,  194,  326 ; his  Court  and 
character,  173-4 
Stormont,  Lord,  497 
Suard,  Mme.,  145,  481,  509 
Sully,  Due  and  Duchesse  de,  17,  28, 
42,  51 

Swift,  Jonathan,  46,  49,  51,  53,  56 


INDEX 


541 


4 Tancred  ’ (‘  Am6naide  ’),  331,  400 ; 
produced,  366 

‘ Temple,  Epicureans  of  the,’  8 
‘ Temple  of  Glory,  The,’  152 ; pro- 
duced, 153 

‘ Temple  of  Taste,  The,’  68,  86  ; 
published,  65-6 

Tencin,  Cardinal  de,  283,  313-14, 
317,  349  ; his  death,  314 
Tencin,  Mme.  de,  44,  63,  283,  302 
Terrai,  Abb<§,  341,  473-4,  479 
Tersac,  de.  See  Saint- Sulpice 
Theriot,  28,  31,  36-39,  43-47,57,  59, 
78,  110,  125,  178,  203-4,  330; 
fellow-pupil  with  Voltaire,  13 ; 
visits  Cirey,  94 ; his  treachery  in 
Desfontaines’  affair,  113-116 ; 
visits  D61ices,  403 ; death  of, 
472-3 

Thil,  Mile,  du,  164,  189,  190,  283, 
291 

Thomson,  James,  46,  49 
Tinois  (secretary),  220 
Tissot,  Doctor,  289 
Tournemine,  Father,  4,  5,  12 
Travenol  Lawsuit,  159,  160 
‘ Treatise  on  Metaphysics,’  75,  80, 
81,  191 

‘Treatise  on  Tolerance,’  408-10, 
414 

Trinquier  (Judge  of  Mazamet).  See 
Sirvens 

‘ Triumvirate,  The,’  produced,  412 
Tronchin,  Doctor  Theodore,  284, 
302,  304,  327,  329,  331,  351,  369  ; 
his  character  and  regime,  284-5  ; 
and  the  ‘ Geneva  ’ Article,  315  ; 
his  ‘ cure  ’ at  Geneva,  316-17  ; in 
Voltaire’s  last  illnesses,  496  seq., 
508-10,  516 

Tronchin,  the  family,  284-5,  290, 
413 

Tronchin,  Mme.,  317 
Turgot  (Controller-General),  480, 
491,  505 

Tyrconnel,  Lord,  215, 232  ; his  death, 
239 

Unigenitus,  the  Bull,  15,  16,  206 
‘ Uranie,  Epistle  to,’  31 ; published, 
63 

Vallette,  351,  362 
Valli&re,  Due  de  la,  298 


Van  Duren  (printer),  121,  259 
‘ Vanity  ’ published,  361-2 
Vauvenargues,  Marquis  de,  158 
Vegobre  (lawyer).  See  Calas  and 
402 

Vernet,  Pastor,  288 ; quarrels  with 
Voltaire,  434-6 

Vestris,  Mme.  (actress),  496,  503, 
508 

Vigui^re,  Jeannette.  See  Calas 
Villars,  Due  de,  369,  403,  405 
Villars,  Mme.  de,  136 
Villars,  Marshal  de,  27,  84,  233 
Villars,  Mar6chale  de,  24,  27,  136 
Villette,  Marquis  de,  490,  492,  502, 
506,  508,  517,  523,  525  ; marries 
Mile,  de  Varicourt,  489  ; at  Vol- 
taire’s death  and  burial,  516,  518, 
520 ; and  second  funeral,  526 ; 
his  death,  528 

Villette,  Marquis  de.  See  Belle-et- 
Bonne 

Villevieille,  Marquis  de,  484,  490, 
498,  501 

‘ Voice,  The,  of  the  Sage  and 
the  People,’  205,  234  ; published, 
201-2 

Voisenon,  Abb<§,  176 
Voltaire,  Franqois  Marie  Arouet  de, 
birth  and  parentage,  1-2 ; bap- 
tism, 2 ; first  letter,  3 ; school 
life,  4-7  ; visits  Ninon  de  l’Enclos, 
5 ; first  tragedy,  6 ; sees  J.  B. 
Bousseau,  6 ; literary  leanings,  7 ; 
studies  law,  7 ; wild  life  in  Paris, 
8-9  ; sent  to  Caen  and  the  Nether- 
lands, 9-10 ; love  affair  with 
Olympe  Dunoyer,  10-13 ; clerk  to 
Maitre  Alain,  12 ; writes  prize 
poem  and  satire,  13  ; visits  Saint- 
Ange  and  begins  ‘ Henriade,’,  14  ; 
at  Louis  XIV.’s  funeral,  16  ; reads 
‘ (Edipe  ’ to  the  Temple,  16  ; in- 
troduced to  Duchesse  du  Maine, 
16 ; visits  Saint-Ange,  17  ; exiled 
to  Sully,  17  ; satires  assigned  to 
him,  18 ; interview  with  Begent, 
19  ; in  the  Bastille,  19-21 ; writes 
‘ Henriade,’  19 ; changes  his 
name,  20 ; exiled  to  Ch&tenay, 
21 ; second  interview  with  Begent, 
21 ; love  affair  with  Mile,  de 
Livri,  21-22 ; acts  in  4 (Edipe,’ 
24 ; his  gains  from  it,  25  ; stays 


542 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


at  Villars,  26 ; at  Sully’s  and 
Richelieu’s,  27  ; failure  of  ‘ Arte- 
mire,’  27  ; to  Richelieu’s,  Sully’s, 
Bolingbroke’s,  and  Villars’,  28  ; his 
father’s  death,  28 ; his  economy, 
29  ; his  affair  with  Levi,  29  ; and 
at  the  Bridge  of  Sevres,  30 ; his 
trip  to  Holland,  30-3 ; writes 
‘ Epistle  to  Uranie,’  31 ; quarrels 
with  J.  B.  Rousseau,  31-2;  to 
Cambrai,  La  Source,  and  Uss6, 
33 ; to  Paris  and  Rouen,  33-4  ; 
publishing  ‘ Henriade,’  35-6  ; goes 
to  Maisons,  36 ; has  smallpox, 
36-7  ; produces  ‘ Mariamne,’  38  ; 
visits  Forges,  38 ; produces 
4 L’Indiscret,’  39  ; at  Court,  39-41 ; 
quarrels  with  Rohan,  42-43 ; 
second  imprisonment  in  the  Bas- 
tille, 44-5 ; his  visit  to  England, 
45-56  ; writes  4 English  Letters,’ 
52-56 ; at  St.  Germains,  57 ; en- 
gaged in  a lottery,  57 ; at  death 
of  Adrienne  Lecouvreur,  58 ; 
writes  poem  on  her  death,  59 ; 
his  views  on  actors,  59  ; produces 
4 Brutus,’  60 ; living  at  Rouen,  61 ; 
at  the  death  of  Maisons,  61 ; pro- 
duces 4 Charles  XII.,’  61-2  ; pro- 
duces 4 Eriphyle,’  62  ; candidate 
for  Academy,  62-3 ; produces 
4 Zaire,’  63  ; at  Court,  64;  at  death 
of  Countess  Martel,  65  ; produces 
4 Temple  of  Taste,’  65-6  ; his  pro- 
t6g6s,  67  ; visited  by  Mme.  du  Cha- 
telet,  67  ; produces  4 Adelaide  du 
Guesclin,’  68  ; at  Richelieu’s  wed- 
ding, 69  ; 4 English  Letters  ’ burnt 
and  escape  to  Cirey,  69 ; first  meets 
Mme.  du  Chatelet,  70 ; meets  her  at 
Sceaux,  71 ; as  her  lover,  72-4 ; 
arrives  at  Cirey,  73 ; goes  to 
Baden,  75  ; life  at  Cirey,  75-77  ; 
plans  4 Prodigal  Son,’  78 ; to 
Lun4ville,  78 ; 4 Death  of  Csesar  ’ 
in  print,  79  ; occupations  at  Cirey, 
79  ; his  4 Treatise  ’ and  4 Dis- 
courses,’ 80  ; produces  4 Alzire,’ 
82 ; quarrels  with  Jore,  82-3 ; 
candidate  for  Academy,  84 ; as 
correspondent  of  Prince  Frede- 
rick, 84-5 ; attacks  J.  B.  Rous- 
seau, 86;  produces  4 Prodigal  Son,’ 
86 ; corresponds  with  Moussinot, 


87  ; in  affair  of 4 Mondain,’  87-8 ; 
visits  Brussels,  Leyden,  and  Am- 
sterdam, 88;  writes  defence  of 
4 Mondain  ’ and  4 Use  of  Life,’  89 ; 
Voltaire  and  nature,  90  ; as  host 
to  Kaiserling,  90-1 ; marrying  his 
nieces,  92-3  ; his  generosity,  93-4  ; 
his  scientific  studies,  94;  writes 
4 Elements  of  Newton  ’ and  4 Essay 
on  Fire,’  95-8;  his  life  during 
Graffigny’s  visit,  99-107 ; and 
with  Mme.  du  Chatelet,  107-9; 
quarrels  with  Desfontaines,  110- 
116 ; visits  Brussels,  Enghien, 
Paris,  116-18;  literary  corre- 
spondence with  Frederick,  119- 
22  ; meets  him  at  Moyland,  123- 
4 ; goes  to  Hague,  125 ; and  Re- 
musberg,  125 ; his  journey  to 
Brussels,  126-8 ; hears  of  invasion 
of  Silesia,  128-9  ; quarrels  with 
Mme.  du  Chatelet,  129  ; produces 
4 Mahomet  ’ at  Lille,  130 ; dis- 
sipation in  Paris,  131 ; produces 
4 Mahomet  ’ there,  132-3  ; visits 
Frederick,  134 ; produces 4 M4rope,’ 

135- 6 ; candidate  for  Academy, 

136- 7 ; his  mission  to  Frederick, 
140-2  ; disagrees  with  Mme.  du 
Chatelet,  142 ; writes  4 Princess 
of  Navarre,’  143-4 ; adventure  in 
Paris,  145 ; at  Armand’s  funeral, 
145;  produces  ‘Princess’  at  Court, 
146  ; as  Historiographer,  146-9  ; 
gains  Pope’s  favour,  149-51 ; and 
Pompadour’s,  151-2  ; produces 
4 Temple  of  Glory,’  152-3 ; his 
treatment  of  servants,  154  ; elected 
to  Academy,  155-7  ; as  friend  of 
Vauvenargues  and  Marmontel, 
158-9  ; in  lawsuits,  159  ; Gentle- 
man-in-Ordinary,  visits  Duchesse 
du  Maine,  161-3 ; escapes  from 
Court  to  Sceaux,  166-7  ; life  there, 
166-8;  his  poem  to  Pompadour, 
169-70  ; escapes  to  Cirey,  171-3  ; 
visits  Stanislas,  173-7  ; Paris  and 
Commerey,  177  ; produces  4 S4mi- 
ramis,’  178-9  ; goes  to  Caf4  Pro- 
cope, 179 ; falls  ill  at  Chalons, 
180  ; discovers  treachery  of  Saint- 
Lambert  and  Mme.  du  Chatelet, 

181- 2  ; his  conduct  in  the  matter, 

182- 4;  quarrels  with  Richelieu 


INDEX 


543 


and  sells  post  of  Gentleman-in- 
Ordinary,  186  ; studies  in  Paris, 
186-7 ; produces  4 Nanine,’  187 ; 
stays  at  Luneville,  188-9  ; during 
illness  and  death  of  Mme.  du 
Chatelet,  her  effect  on  him,  190-4  ; 
his  despair  in  Paris,  195;  produces 
‘ Oreste,’  197-8  ; Mme.  Denis  to 
live  with  him,  198 ; acting  in  Rue 
Traversiere,  199  ; produces  ‘ Rome 
Sauvee,’  199-200 ; quarrels  with 
Freron,  200-1 ; reasons  for  going 
to  Prussia,  202-5  ; his  departure 
and  arrival  at  Potsdam,  206 ; his 
enjoyment  there,  207-8 ; at  the 
Carrousel,  209-11 ; in  Potsdam, 
212-3 ; at  the  Royal  Suppers, 
214-7  ; writes  Letter  of  Buts,  218  ; 
quarrels  with  d’Arnaud,  218-20  ; 
with  Tinois  and  Lessing,  220-1 ; 
small  disagreeables,  221-2  ; quar- 
rels with  Hirsch,  222-7 ; cor- 
recting Frederick’s  works,  228-30 ; 
his  strained  relations  with  him, 
230-2;  produces  ‘Louis  XIV.,’ 
233-5  ; quarrels  with  Mauper- 
tuis,  236-43;  produces  ‘Akakia,’ 
243-7  ; preparing  to  leave,  248- 
50  ; is  dismissed,  251  ; parts 
from  Frederick,  251-2  ; goes  to 
Leipzig  &c.,  252-6  ; detained  at 
Frankfort,  257-67  ; results  of 
Prussian  visit,  268-9  ; visits 
Mayence,  &c.,  and  Colmar,  270-2  ; 
his  ‘ Essay 5 appears,  273-6  ; 
deciding  where  to  live,  277 ; 
publishes  ‘ Annals,’  278 ; as  cor- 
respondent of  du  Deffand,  278 ; 
communicates  at  Easter,  ,279;  to 
Senones  and  Plombi&res,  280  ; 
looking  for  a Swiss  property, 
281 ; visits  Richelieu,  282-3  ; at 
Geneva  with  Tronchins,  284-6  ; 
at  Prangins,  285  ; acquires  Delices 
and  Monrion,  286  ; improving 
Delices,  288-90  ; visited  by  Le- 
kain,  290-1  ; denies  ‘ Pucelle,’ 
291-2  ; produces  ‘ Orphan  of 
China,’  293  ; answers  Rousseau’s 
‘ Inequality,’  293-4 ; writes  ‘ Dis- 
aster of  Lisbon,’  295-6  ; and 
‘ Natural  Law,’  296-7  ; offered 
cardinal’s  hat,  298  ; dismisses 
Collini,  299-300  ; as  d’Alembert’s 


host,  301-4;  espouses  cause  of 
Byng,  305-6 ; his  opinion  of  Da- 
miens affair,  307 ; and  of  Lau- 
sanne society,  308-9  ; at  work  and 
play,  309 ; invents  war-chariot, 
310;  interferes  in  Seven  Years’ 
War,  311-14,  349-50 ; in  affair  of 
‘ Geneva  ’ Article,  314-15  ; enter- 
taining visitors,  316-20;  to  stay 
with  Elector  Palatine,  321-2 
writes  Ode  on  death  of  Margra- 
vine, 322 ; on  the  Saurin  con- 
troversy, 323  ; receives  Bettinelli, 
326-7 ; buys  Ferney  and  Tour- 
ney, 327-31 ; his  house,  garden, 
and  life  at  Ferney,  332-43  ; his 
‘ Natural  Law  ’ burnt,  344  ; pro- 
duces ‘ Candide,’  345-8  ; in  affair 
of  Frederick’s  Ode,  348-9 ; has 
d’Aumard  to  live  with  him,  351 ; 
reading  English  books,  352  ; 
writes  ‘ Peter  the  Great,’  352-4 ; 
his  battle  against  Vinfdme , 354- 
7 ; attacks  Pompignan,  358-62 ; 
Palissot  and  Freron,  362-4 ; pro- 
duces ‘ Scotch  Girl,’  363-6  ; and 
4 Tancred,’  366-8 ; receives  Mar- 
montel  and  acts  plays,  368-70  ; 
adopts  Marie  Corneille,  370-3 ; 
compared  with  Rousseau,  374 ; 
criticises  4 Eloisa,’  375 ; quarrels 
with  Jesuits,  376  ; builds  a 
church,  377-9 ; annotates  Cor- 
neille, 380  ; quarrels  with  de 
Brosses,  381 ; writes  4 Olympie,’ 
382 ; and  ‘ Eloge  de  Crebillon,’  and 
4 Opinions  of  Meslier,’  383-4 ; in 
the  affair  of  Calas,  384-99,  407, 
413-15 ; has  4 Olympie  ’ acted  at 
Ferney,  400  ; quarrels  with  Rous- 
seau, 402-3 ; receives  Theriot  and 
Richelieu,  403 ; produces  4 Pu- 
celle,’ 403-5 ; marries  Marie  Cor- 
neille to  Dupuits,  405 ; has 
Father  Adam  to  live  with  him, 
406-7 ; writes  4 Treatise  on 
Tolerance,’  408-9  ; helps  Espinas 
and  Chaumont,  409-10 ; receives 
Ligne  and  Bouffters,  411  ; pro- 
duces ‘Olympie,’  411-12  ; in  the 
affair  of  the  Sirvens,  416-22 ; 
reconciled  to  Frederick,  422 ; 
corresponds  with  Catherine  the 
Great,  423,  453  ; visited  by 


544 


THE  LIFE  OF  VOLTAIRE 


Clairon  and  Wilkes,  424  ; in  the 
affair  of  La  Barre,  425-9 ; es- 
capes to  Bolle,  429  ; his  ‘ Philo- 
sophical Dictionary,5  430  ; in 
the  affairs  of  Bourgeoisie  and 
Natives,  432-4  ; quarrels  with 
Yernet,  434-5 ; in  the  affair  of 
Covelle,  435-6 ; in  the  blockade 
of  Ferney,  436-7 ; receives  Bos- 
well, Ac.,  437-9  ; quarrels  with  La 
Beaumelle,  439 ; in  La  Harpe’s 
treachery,  440-4 ; alone  at  Fer- 
ney, 444-5 ; preaches  in  church, 
445-6 ; receives  Fox,  446 ; cor- 
responds with  Walpole,  447  ; 
as  a pamphleteer,  448-50  ; com- 
municates at  Easter,  451-2 ; 
obtains  annuity  for  Capuchins, 
453  ; his  industries  at  Ferney, 
454-62 ; his  statue  by  Pigalle, 
463-5 ; receives  Burney,  d’Alem- 
bert, Condorcet,  466-8 ; in  the 
affair  of  the  Parliament  of  Paris, 
469-70 ; receives  Florians  and 
Dr.  Moore,  471-2  ; his  relations 
with  Mme.  Dubarry,  473-4 ; in 
the  affairs  of  the  Bombelles, 
Martin,  and  Montbaillis,  474-6 ; 
and  of  Lally,  476-8 ; writes 
* Eulogy  on  Louis  XV.,5  479  ; his 
friendship  for  Turgot,  480 ; has 
a succession  of  visitors,  480-2 ; 
adopts  ‘Belle-et-Bonne,5  482 ; quar- 
rels with  Letourneur,  484  ; writes 
‘ S6sostris  5 ; and  dismisses  Adam, 
486  ; quarrels  with  Gu6n6e,  486-7 ; 
chagrin  at  Joseph  II.’s  neglect, 

487- 8 ; affection  for  ‘ Belle-et- 
Bonne,5  marries  her  to  Villette, 

488- 9  ; writing  * Ir&ne,5  489-90  ; 
his  reasons  for  and  against  going 
to  Paris,  490-1 ; his  journey  there, 
492-3 ; his  reception  by  the 
capital,  493-5  ; his  visitors,  495-8  ; 
his  dealings  with  Gaultier,  498- 
502  ; visited  by  du  Deffand  and 
d’Alembert,  499-501 ; his  declara- 
tion of  faith,  501 ; ill  in  bed,  502- 
4 ; hears  of  success  of  ‘ Ir&ne,5  504 ; 


discovers  it  has  been  altered,  505  ; 
sees  Turgot,  505  ; his  reception 
at  Academy  and  Com6die,  505-8  ; 
indecision  as  to  his  movements, 
509-10  ; visits  Mme.  du  Deffand 
and  Marquise  de  Gouvernet,  511 ; 
to  stance  at  Academy,  512  ; buys 
a house,  513 ; last  attendance  at 
Academy  and  Dictionary  scheme, 
513-14 ; to  performance  of 
‘ Alzire,5  514  ; his  last  illness,  516- 
19  ; his  death,  519  ; his  burial  at 
Scellieres,  519-20  ; his  Will,  521 ; 
as  subject  of  Academy  prize  poem, 
521 ; eulogised  by  Frederick,  522  ; 
his  library  and  Ferney  sold,  523  ; 
eulogised  at  Academy,  524;  his 
‘ Memoirs  5 appear,  524 ; second 
funeral,  525-7  ; his  tomb  violated, 
528 ; his  Centenary,  528 ; as  foe 
of  Roman  Catholicism,  529  ; as 
poet,  playwright,  historian,  529  ; 
as  novelist  and  letter-writer,  530  ; 
his  religion,  531-2 ; his  work  for 
the  world,  532 


W AGNikRE  (servant-secretary),  261, 
334, 336-7, 343, 471,  521-3  ; enters 
Voltaire’s  service,  300  ; during 
his  last  visit  to  Paris,  495,  498 
seq.,  508-9,  512-13 

Walpole,  Horace,  447 

‘ Whens,  The,5  &c.,  359-60 

Wilkes,  John,  424 

Willancourt,  Abbess  of.  See  La 
Barre 

Williams,  Hanbury,  217 

XiMENks,  Marquis  de  (or  Chimen^s), 
231,  294,  375 

Young,  Dr.  (poet),  46,  49 


‘ Zadig,5  166-8,  201 
‘ Zaire,5  63-4,  227  ; produced,  63 
‘ Zulime  5 (‘  Fanine  ’),  309,  319 


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